By Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – An incident Wednesday morning has Port Angeles Police Chief Brian Smith once again expressing his concern for what he and many others in law enforcement say is a worsening disregard in some people for police officers and social norms.

At about 6:00am Wednesday, a PAPD Sergeant in a fully marked police car with a light bar on top was driving westbound on Highway 101 near Deer Park Road when a black sedan came up behind him at a high rate of speed.

The Sergeant hit the lights and siren, trying to make a traffic stop. But the speeding driver took off ahead, measured by radar at 85 mph in a 40 mph zone, weaving through traffic and driving in a manner consistent with DUI. That’s reason enough to authorize a pursuit by police, which they did.

Two PAPD units responded with the intent of deploying spike strips, but the speeding driver blew by before they could get into position and hasn’t been seen since.

Chief Smith says this kind of behavior is a growing problem statewide, and it includes a growing number of assaults on officers, as well. Both statistics have essentially tripled in number this year.

“In some universes, people don’t, on purpose, drive up behind a police vehicle at high speed and then continue at high speed and then don’t stop for them. That kind of behavior is, I think, more pronounced statewide. It definitely reflects in our pursuit statistics. And then the assaults on officers, I think it’s the same kind of behavior. It’s a different kind of behavior towards us.”

Chief Smith says there’s no way to tell why this or any other suspect does what they do until you ask them, and in this case that may not happen, but many attribute the growing problem to recent restrictions placed on law enforcement in our state that dictates when they can pursue a suspect and how and when they can arrest a suspect. Smith says it certainly hasn’t helped matters.

“Well, we’re definitely seeing behavioral and cultural changes among some people. I absolutely want something to happen in the next session, in that we need to have the ability to pursue people in situations where we’ve deemed that it’s safe to do so based on our training. So we need to get that back. And legislatively, also, there needs to be consequences for this kind of behavior. You know, putting the public at risk. But until there’s a perception that we can engage people, we’re going to see more of this behavior. And it would be be helpful to us that people perceive that voluntary compliance is more appropriate than noncompliance.”

In the end, the pursuit was terminated, which Smith says they would have done regardless of current statutes because of the danger to the public at the time.

Patrol Officers are working to identify and locate the suspect and vehicle. If the suspect can be identified and probable cause established, officers will make an arrest and refer the case for charges.