Some Texas police say high-speed chases keep the public safe. Here’s what happens when they don’t

From KERA News:

Sweeping the dirt off her son’s grave never gets easier for Erma Harrison. But she takes good care of his plot.

Harrison has become a fixture at this cemetery on the edge of Arlington. She keeps guard over the flowers that always adorn the pot attached to his headstone. She even used to cut the grass around his grave but was told to stop.

“I had people thinking I was sleeping at the grave site,” she says while brushing the headstone. “I come out here a lot.”

On a bright, windy Saturday last March, Harrison, her family and her son’s friends gathered to release balloons in memory of Jr’Mani Franklin at his grave in Fort Worth.

Blue was Franklin’s favorite color — so dry flowers on his blue and gold headstone were swapped for a fresh blue and white bouquet.

And the group released a cluster of blue, white and yellow balloons into the pale blue sky, shouting, “love you, Money” – his nickname.

That month marked three years since 19-year-old Franklin died from brain trauma during a high-speed police chase. His friend was behind the wheel of a stolen Dodge Charger, and in a matter of minutes after the chase began, the car hit a dip in the road, veered out of control and slammed into a tree.

After two days in the hospital, doctors pronounced Franklin brain dead from his injuries.

Time hasn’t been healing for Harrison. Her two kids make up the two halves of her heart, she said. All that fills the void of her first child’s death are the memories of his accomplished high school athletic career and the way he swore to take care of his family.

“It really impacted me to see a half of my whole gone, because I don’t have that no more,” Harrison said, her voice shaking. “And I can’t bring it back.”

Franklin was one of nearly 500 people across the country who died in a police pursuit in 2021, one of the deadliest years for police pursuits in recent history. The stakes for the public and law enforcement in these high-speed chases has led most departments to require consideration over whether the alleged crime warrants the danger of a high-speed chase.

But even when chases are warranted, the outcome can leave families and communities in mourning and fear — and the number of people who die in chases is on the rise, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

The Fort Worth Police Department released only a redacted version of its pursuit policy less than a month before Franklin’s balloon ceremony, so it’s unclear whether the chase that killed Franklin followed the department’s rules.

But an earlier version of the department’s policy states “traffic violations alone or suspicion of a vehicle being stolen are not sufficient reasons to engage in a pursuit.”

“It’s about the city of Fort Worth because it’s their guidelines,” Harrison said about the chase. “And I’m pretty sure in his mind, (the police officer is) just doing his job. So it’s about y’all not waking up and finding a better protocol for the situation.”

Pursuits can also leave those who would otherwise be charged with lower-level crimes facing manslaughter or even murder charges.

Franklin’s friend Damion Daniels survived the crash. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in state jail for the incident, a sentence he’s still serving.

In an interview with KERA News from jail, he said he had bought the car from a family member he didn’t necessarily trust, and he didn’t know it was stolen. When he figured out he and Franklin were being chased by the police, Daniels said he panicked and was just trying to get to his mom’s house.

He also said he blacked out during much of the chase.

“I wasn’t tripping on, like, ‘oh, I got a manslaughter,’ but it’s just I’m getting charged with my best friend’s manslaughter,” he said. “Then again, I did that, so it was like, I gotta man up to that.”

Law enforcement researchers have discouraged chasing a driver for stolen property or other low-level crimes for those reasons. A 2023 report by the Police Executive Research Forum, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services suggested not only should law enforcement avoid pursuing those suspected of car theft, but that those accused of crimes might be less likely to drive dangerously if they don’t know they’re being pursued.

Daniels declined to explain what he and Franklin were doing that day before the chase, but police records show the car was near Daniels’ house. According to the police report, the officer looking for Daniels in southeast Fort Worth believed Daniels “had seen me in the parking lot and was trying to get away.”

Suspects and uninvolved bystanders aren’t the only victims of chases. In Grand Prairie, Officer Brandon Tsai died while pursuing a car with fake paper license plates in 2022. For that, the driver was charged with evading arrest and detention causing death.

The Grand Prairie Police Department doesn’t prohibit chases based on specific offenses. A spokesperson for the Grand Prairie Police Department said in an email there have been no changes to the department’s pursuit policy since the fatal crash, and that Tsai’s death wasn’t the result of any policy violations.

Stolen property also led to Andre Craig’s death. The 57-year-old was killed by an officer chasing a stolen car in 2023. Witnesses say the officer ran a red light and struck Craig’s vehicle.

Craig was ejected from the car and pronounced dead at the scene.

“My father has lost his oldest son,” Nefertari Mundy, Craig’s younger sister, told KERA News at his funeral. “And we’ve lost our brother. And he has friends that will never be able to hear his voice again. And so, we’ve all lost something over something that can be replaced.”

In that chase, FWPD found the officer violated the department’s rules on police chases and the officer was disciplined. A Tarrant County grand jury declined to bring criminal charges against the officer.

But the city isn’t releasing records that indicate exactly how the officer was disciplined. The city attorney’s office appealed a request from KERA News and the Fort Worth Report, telling the Texas Attorney General’s Office releasing the requested information could hinder the prosecution of the fleeing driver in that case.

Craig’s father is now suing the city of Fort Worth for wrongful death, alleging the officer who hit Craig — and by extension the city — was negligent and reckless during the chase.

When Craig was hit, his car also hit Manuel and Luis Arellano’s car. In their own lawsuit against the city, they allege the incident caused them serious injuries and violated state law.

Two lawsuits over police chases that injured uninvolved drivers recently made their way before the Texas Supreme Court, but the state’s highest court ultimately ruled the cities of Austin and Houston were protected by governmental immunity for the actions of their officers.

Two justices, however, wrote separate opinions acknowledging the inherent risk of chases and suggesting those injured in chases they weren’t involved in should have some other opportunity to be compensated for their trauma.

For Esther Seoanes, the grief of losing her husband in a fatal police pursuit became an opportunity for other kinds of action.

Seoanes’ husband James Williford was killed in 2012 when a man ran a red light and crashed into Williford’s car while fleeing from Austin police. The Austin Police Department said the suspect was fleeing at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour.

“My husband was killed for stolen property,” Seoanes said. “That is not OK. This is why I decided that I needed to find a way to change the system that we have currently that isn’t working for our communities to keep them safer.”

She joined PursuitSAFETY, a national nonprofit that since 2007 has aimed to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by police chase crashes.

The group isn’t against all chases – it supports tougher consequences for those who flee from the police. But PursuitSAFETY also educates law enforcement agencies and the public about the risks of pursuits, provides support for those who have lost loved ones and advocates in court proceedings and state legislatures for safer chases.

Seoanes is now PursuitSAFETY’s executive director. Connecting with the organization helped her during a time she felt lost and struggled to move on in life, she said.

Seoanes supports changes like avoiding pursuits of people suspected of nonviolent felonies, like in the chase that killed Williford. She’s also a proponent of using new technology that helps departments avoid many chases — anything to reduce the harm they can cause.

“We need our loved ones to be protected first and foremost,” she said. “If a chase has to occur, it needs to occur safely. It needs to occur with the understanding that we are impacting our community every time we do it.”

The Fort Worth Report’s Emily Wolf contributed to this story.

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