Washington Legislature loosens restrictions on police pursuits as Legislature backs initiative walking back chase reforms

OLYMPIA – The Washington Legislature has loosened restrictions on law enforcement pursuits in the state, circumventing the need for voter approval in November.

Last year, more than 400,000 Washingtonians signed a ballot measure, Initiative 2113, that would have overturned the state law preventing an officer from embarking on a car chase unless they have “reasonable suspicion” a person has committed certain crimes, such as a violent offense or driving while drunk or high on drugs.

The state Senate approved the initiative Monday with a 36-13 supermajority. Later that afternoon, the House followed suit and passed the initiative in a 77-20 vote.

Liberty Lake Police Chief Damon Simmons said the vote rectifies past legislation that made it harder for law enforcement agencies to protect their communities.

Police advocacy groups and agencies across the state have called on lawmakers to loosen the restrictions since they were enacted during a national wave of police reforms following the murder of Georgy Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

In 2021, the Democrat-led Legislature passed a group of laws intended to tighten guidelines for law enforcement. Among those laws was one that required police to have probable cause that a suspect in a car committed a violent crime, a sex offense, was driving intoxicated or fleeing arrest before chasing them in a vehicle.

“The unintended consequences of the initial legislation is that it enabled criminal behavior,” Simmons said.

“I think it put the public in more danger,” he continued. “It became scary even for me, knowing my wife and kids were out driving, how many drivers were fleeing police stops.”

Gov. Jay Inslee signed a more lenient police pursuit law last year, swapping out the words “probable cause” for “reasonable suspicion” in the list of requirements.

The initiative passed this week allows agencies to engage in pursuits when they have reasonable suspicion someone has broken the law, not just specific crimes as the original legislation intended.

It also lowers the risk threshold officers must consider when initiating a pursuit. The previous version of the policy allowed for chases when the person being pursued “posed a serious risk of harm to others, and the safety risk of failing to apprehend or identify the person was greater than any safety risks associated with the pursuit.” The initiative swaps out “serious risk of harm to others” with “threat to the safety of others.”

Initiative 2113 is just one of six ballot measures backed by Let’s Go Washington, a political action committee dedicated to repealing laws passed by the Democrat-led state Legislature. Brian Heywood, a business owner from Redmond, has bankrolled the initiatives, spending more than $5 million to get them on the November ballot.

Gary Damon Jr., the interim director of The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, said in a statement Monday the initiative will lead to more harm in communities across the state.

“We opposed this substantive change in state law,” Damon said, “as we believe it will lead to more injuries, more deaths and increased collateral damage, without any benefit to public safety such as solving crimes or reducing lawlessness.”

In the past five years, more than 3,000 U.S. residents have been killed in police vehicle pursuits, including more than 500 bystanders, the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported. And police chases kill four times as many Black people per capita as they do white people, the study found. Only one in 15 of the people killed in police pursuits the past five years was reportedly a suspect being chased for a violent crime.

It will now be up to individual agencies to set the policies and procedures for pursuits, just as it was before the 2021 legislation.

Simmons said Washingtonians should have more faith in their law enforcement officers to make appropriate decisions on whether to pursue, based on agency policies and procedures, to keep the community safe.

“I think, statewide, that the policies were well-written and they guided and they governed agencies in their pursuits,” Simmons said. “I think there has to be a level of trust in the community that we’re going to do everything within our means to ensure they’re safe and that we’ll do it appropriately.”

Spokane Police Guild President Dave Dunkin, a Spokane police detective, said the changes will likely have little impact within city limits.

“We already had a pretty conservative pursuit policy,” Dunkin said. “And the change last year to reasonable suspicion already kind of brought things back to how they were for us.”

Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, said he voted in support of the initiative because it won’t change a whole lot for the people of Spokane County.

“I don’t expect the Spokane Police Department to change their policy based on what it was before,” he said. “So I felt like I could vote either way.”

Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, said he supported the initiative because it’s common sense, adding that all law enforcement officials he’s talked to echo this sentiment.

“The 400,000-plus people who signed it were of all political persuasions,” Schoesler said. “Our car thefts are up dramatically, and stolen cars are being used to commit crimes, because criminals know the police wouldn’t pursue them”

Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, said he opposed the initiative because Spokane already has a nearly identical policy.

“I think the argument that this lets people know people can just run from cops is not a sound argument,” Ormsby said. “Peace officers have a lot of other instruments and abilities to get perpetrators that don’t involve high-speed pursuits.”

Initiative 2113 now heads to Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs for signature. The initiative will take effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session.

Editor’s note: This story was changed on March 7, 2024, to correct the first name of Liberty Lake Police Chief Damon Simmons.