The day after Jeannie Long learned she was pregnant, a car wreck sent her hurtling through Oak Grove yards on her way home from running an errand.
It happened on the night of Aug. 10, 2007, as Long was driving down the narrow, unlit Hugh Hunter Road. She noticed police lights flashing in her rearview mirror. Since Long was only traveling 30 mph, she knew the officer wasn’t pulling her over, she said. She figured there had been an accident nearby.
“You see a bunch of lights and you hear these sirens, but you don’t know where they’re coming from,” Long said in a recent interview.
Long tried to pull over to the right, but there was no shoulder. She decided to turn left down a side road. Long, as well as a witness, Klair Karampatsos, said that Long used her turn signal.
As she turned, a vehicle slammed into the driver’s side of Long’s Nissan Sentra and sent her and the car flying.
“All I could see and all I could remember was hitting the mailboxes, a fire hydrant and a ditch,” said Long, of Atlantic Avenue. “I thought for sure my car had rolled over on someone
because it was out of control.”
Long’s wreck was the result of a high-speed police pursuit involving the Oak Grove Police Department.
It was one of at least 12 high-speed Oak Grove police pursuits in a six-month period between March and December 2007. Five of these resulted in wrecks and four people were injured.
Through Open Records requests, the New Era was able to obtain documentation for the 12 high-speed police pursuits. Initially, the New Era requested copies of reports for all police pursuits in 2007. The Oak Grove Police Department denied the request in part, claiming that, pursuant to Kentucky law, “the City of Oak Grove cannot provide any such records that could impact ongoing investigations or litigation.”
Eleven reports were issued to the New Era as a result of the request. It is unknown how many are still under investigation, and, therefore, how many were omitted.
Long’s case, and the frequency of recent high-speed pursuits, raises questions regarding the department’s police pursuit policy.
According to the Oak Grove Police Department Policies and Procedures Manual, a vehicular pursuit is “an active attempt by an officer in an authorized emergency vehicle to apprehend fleeing suspects who are attempting to avoid apprehension through speed and/or other evasive tactics.”
The policy states that the decision to initiate a pursuit must be based on the pursuing officer’s conclusion that the immediate danger to the officer and the public created by the pursuit is less than the immediate or potential danger to the public, should the suspect remain at large.
“Just because it’s a residential road doesn’t mean you’re not going to pursue,” said Capt. William Sparks, Oak Grove’s public information officer. “There’s just 100 factors to consider.”
After Officer Victor Lynch’s cruiser plowed into Long’s vehicle, the car flipped four to five times and stopped more than 100 feet from the initial impact.
Lynch had been driving more than 90 mph when he hit her, police later told Long. The speed limit on the two-lane Hugh Hunter Road is 35 mph. No estimated rate of speed was recorded on the accident report for either Lynch or Long.
However, the report and a news release sent by police to local media stated Long was at fault for the accident. Long’s insurance company paid for all damages to her
vehicle and the police cruiser, she said.
“The law says you pull as far to the right as you can and stop (for an emergency vehicle),” Sparks said. “Police officers are expecting you to go to the right. They’re not expecting you to go to the left. Of course, they try to use as much caution as possible.”
But a nationally recognized expert on police pursuits said officers cannot assume that every driver that sees blue lights will pull over to the right.
“Cops should be trained,” said Dr. Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who has studied police pursuits for more than 20 years. “You turn the lights on and some of us will pull to the r ight, some of us will pull to the left and some of us will stop right where we are. You can’t predict what you’re going to do or what I’m going to do. Yeah, the law says pull to the right. Well, some panic.”
In the wreck involving Long, the police officer was chasing a motorcycle driven by Gerardo Berrios. Officer Christopher Bedell and Lynch initiated the pursuit after they spotted Berrios “driving recklessly and at a high rate of speed” on Shetland Avenue, according to a news release from the Oak Grove Police Department. After Berrios, 23, would not stop, Lynch and Bedell began to chase him. The pursuit reached speeds of up to 115 mph, according to the release.
The department’s Policies and Procedures Manual states, “unless expressly authorized by a field supervisor, pursuit should be limited to the assigned primary and one backup vehicle. Officers are not otherwise permitted to join the pursuit team, or follow the pursuit on parallel streets.”
Both Long and Karampatsos said they saw at least three police cars involved in the chase.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice Web site, increasing the number of vehicles involved in police pursuits increased the likelihood of apprehension, but also the chance of
accidents, injuries and property damage.
A new release issued shortly after Long’s incident stated that “during the pursuit, a vehicle pulled over to the right shoulder of the road as required for the emergency vehicles. She allowed one cruiser to pass then pulled out into the path of the other police vehicle being driven by Officer Lynch. A collision ensued.”
The police did not release Long’s name at the time. Her name and identity were discovered after the state Attorney General’s office ruled that Oak Grove police had to release the accident report to the New Era.
Long said she never pulled over to the right side of the road because there was no shoulder. After seeing the police lights, she turned down the next side street she saw, Long said. Karampatsos confirmed Long’s story.
After the Oak Grove Fire Department cut Long from her car using the Jaws of Life, she was taken to the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell. Her injuries included several broken ribs, massive bruises and a broken noise. It was a month before she could lie flat on her back. Her baby survived the crash, she said.
Karampatsos said it took responders several minutes to get to the scene. The officers involved in the pursuit continued chasing Berrios, she said. When officers did arrive, they immediately helped Lynch, and then Long, according to Karampatsos.
Karampatsos, her husband and their two children had just pulled into their driveway on Hugh Hunter Road, when several police cars went speeding by, Karampatsos said. That’s when they watched as Lynch collided with Long, sending Long’s car only feet from their front porch.
“We were running for the front door thinking it was going to hit us,” Karampatsos said.
When police questioned Karampatsos, she told them it was the police officer’s fault and that he had plenty of room to go around Long on the other side, she said.
“I don’t understand,” Karampatsos said. “With all the witnesses who were saying the same thing, why didn’t (Lynch) get charged? It kills me that this woman could have lost her baby and the cop didn’t get in any trouble. He should have got in so much more trouble.
“There had to have been between seven to 10 of us that told them that it was the cop’s fault. I don’t understand how they got away with this after we all told them that.”
Long was not the only one injured as a result of the pursuit. Lynch was also taken to the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital.
According to Sparks, he suffered from “non-life threatening injuries.”
Moments after Long’s collision, Berrios slammed into the back of F-250 pickup truck. Jacob Whipkey, the driver of the truck had started to slow down after noticing the police cars approaching him. Berrios hit the rear of the truck and was thrown 75 yards, according to the accident report. He was not wearing a helmet.
Berrios was transported by helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. His injuries are unknown.
Neither Whipkey, nor his passenger, Stephen Avey, both of Fort Campbell, were injured.
Long’s wreck is not the only one of its kind. A similar incident occurred last month involving a Fort Campbell soldier.
Joshua Miller, 29, of Oak Grove, was pulling out of the Dollar General parking lot on Kentucky 115, when he noticed blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror of his Chevrolet Impala.
“I seen blue lights behind me, so I assumed I was being pulled over,” Miller said. “There wasn’t a shoulder off the side of the road, so I pulled into a nearby parking lot.”
Just as Miller was making a left turn, a police cruiser being driven by Oak Grove Police Officer Andrew Sanderson – in an attempt to pass Miller – crashed into the driver’s side of Miller’s car.
“Right as I started to turn left, they shot around (my car),” Miller said.
According to the police report, Miller was traveling between 30 and 35 mph, while Sanderson was traveling between 50 and 55 mph.
Police told Miller they were on the way to a domestic dispute, he said.
Miller suffered from whiplash and injuries to his left shoulder. At the time of the wreck, Miller was recovering from shoulder surgery.
Since the accident, Miller has had no contact with the police department. “They sent me a letter from some attorney’s office,” Miller said. “The want me or my insurance company to start paying them.”
Miller said it was unclear what they wanted payment for, but assumed it had something to do with damages to a city vehicle during the wreck, he said.
“It definitely doesn’t feel like it’s my fault at all,” Miller said. “I don’t see how it could be stated as my fault.
“I’m disgusted with them.”
Since her wreck last August, Jeannie Long has only driven once.
She had to drive the car back home after her husband had driven them to the airport for his Iraq deployment.
Long cried the entire drive home. She was terrified, she said. She is seeing a counselor.
That night, Long’s life changed forever, she said. She would never feel quite as safe in a car again.
She says she doesn’t intend to press charges, though.
“It’s not a monetary thing for me,” Long said. “I’d just like them to stop doing that and apologize and at least admit publicly it’s not my fault.”
Pursuit policy
The policy that Long wants to see changed has been in effect since July 1, 2001. It was a model policy that the Oak Grove Police Department adopted from the Kentucky League of Cities.
The department is in the beginning stages of an accreditation process, said Sparks. This will mean revisions to many policies to match the demands of an accredited program. However, Oak Grove stands by its current policy.
“You have to decide ‘we’re going to pursue people’ or ‘we’re not going to pursue people.’” Sparks said. “If you’re not going to pursue people, you might as well give a license to the crooks to let them do what they want.”
Critics disagree.
“There are two types of people in the world,” said Alpert, the University of South Carolina criminology professor. “Those of us who aren’t going to run and those of us who are. It doesn’t matter what (the police) do, those people are going to run anyway.”
Even when the number of pursuits fluctuates, research shows that about 40 percent of all pursuits result in a wreck, 20 percent result in an injury and 1 percent results in a death, according to Alpert.
Some departments across the country have implemented alternatives to pursuing, such as tire deflation devices and tracking devices, including helicopters, he said. However, Alpert said there is only one real alternative to catching the “bad guy.
Alpert said officers should “do their homework and identify who the person is.” This could include getting the driver’s license plate number, a description of the suspect or conducting interviews near where the suspect fled from. It doesn’t include pursuing, though, he said.
Sparks said he has run into some problems with this approach, though.
“Almost always that person goes home, hides the car, calls the police and says ‘Hey, someone stole my car,’” he said. “Now, you got a tag number, you got who owns the car, but he says his car was stolen. Sometimes we can prove he’s lying, but sometimes you really have no way of knowing who’s driving the car. And, sometimes, the criminal is not driving his own car.
“A lot of times the tag number doesn’t go to the person who’s in it. Just getting the tag number is not always enough.”