Report: 17 Dallas Officers Violated Chase Policy

Updated 7:33 AM CST, Thu, Dec 4, 2008

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KXAS

A Dallas Police Department's internal affairs investigation shows 17 officers violated its high-speed chase policy during a September chase in which an officer was seriously injured, according to a newspaper report.

The Dallas Morning News obtained the report through an open-records request.

Police Chief David Kunkle said he had not yet been briefed on the results of the internal investigation and could not comment on it.

Senior Cpl. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, said he believed that much of the criticism aimed at officers has been unfair second-guessing.

"Officers are going out there trying to do the best they can. God forbid when something happens, because when it does, everybody's up for scrutiny and we're all criticized," Cpl. White said.

The 28-minute chase on Sept. 6 resulted from a 911 call in which a woman reported that her ex-boyfriend, Jason Sneed, 27, was threatening her. Officers chased Sneed from the woman's apartment complex in Dallas to Mesquite and back to Dallas before he abandoned his vehicle and was arrested.

None of the officers, including officer Christopher Cordray who was injured when his vehicle hit a tree, were authorized to be involved in the chase that began when a driver tried to run over several officers during a confrontation in an apartment parking lot.

Two pairs of officers also face discipline for having turned off their squad cars' in-car video cameras in violation of the department's policy, according to the report.

Officials have not determined what discipline the officers may face. But the chase, along with an October incident in which a squad car fatally struck a 10-year-old child while racing at least 29 mph over the speed limit without sirens or lights on a darkened road, prompted the department to tighten its procedures on how officers respond to emergencies.

A panel formed by Kunkle to review the department's police pursuits has made several recommendations, including: New scenario-based high-speed chase training, that officers be prohibited from turning off in-car cameras during a chase and that in-car video recording equipment activate at 80 mph rather than 100 mph.