Sharon Fairley Discusses New CPD Foot Pursuit Policy on CBS Chicago
Chicago Police unveil new foot pursuit policy: chases will no longer be acceptable just because someone runs
Two high-profile police shootings that started with foot chases have prompted big changes to Chicago Police policy.
After working with a draft for more than a year, the Chicago Police Department on Tuesday unveiled its new guidelines for foot pursuits.
As CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported, one of the biggest changes to the policy is that Chicago Police officers will no longer be able to chase after someone just because they run away. Instead, officers will now have to conduct a balancing test, and there also will now be accountability and data on foot chases.
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"There are a lot of reasons why a person may not want to interact with the law enforcement officers, and so just because someone walks away or runs away when they see an officer coming onto the scene, that's not enough to justify a pursuit," said Sharon Fairley, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
Fairley used to oversee independent misconduct investigations of Chicago Police officers. She now focuses on police reform at the U of C Law School.
"What we have here is a balancing test kind of that that officers are constantly being asked to do," Fairley said.
Read more at CBS Chicago