WA state legislature passes Initiative 2113 on police pursuits

New rules that give police more leeway to engage in high-speed pursuits will become law June 5 after the Washington State Legislature passed Initiative 2113.

Initiative 2113 will closely resemble state law prior to 2021 that allowed police to determine whether reasonable suspicion exists that a person violated the law in order to start a vehicular pursuit. The initiative passed the state Senate 36-13 and state House 77-20 earlier in the month.

“The people of the state are suffering increasing rates of crime, property, crime, violent crime,” said state representative Jim Walsh, (R-Aberdeen). “When I talked to cops and sheriff’s deputies, they told me the one thing more than anything else that we need is the ability to chase bad people.”

In 2021, the legislature approved a measure that restricted police pursuit strategy. Under that standard, vehicular pursuits were limited to when officers had “probable cause” that a person in a vehicle committed a violent offense, including sex or domestic violence offenses, or were driving under the influence or trying to escape arrest. The standard was changed back to “reasonable suspicion” in 2022.

In 2023, in an effort to relax those standards, less violent crimes such as theft were added to the list of crimes that can result in a chase.

“We have become the nation’s leader in car theft,” said Brian Heywood, prime funder of Let’s Go Washington, a political action committee that promoted conservative-backed initiatives, including 2113, during this legislative session. “We’ve had skyrocketing increases in our car insurance rates. This is a direct result of increased car theft caused by the inability of the police to pursue.”

Some opposed the change because they believe vehicular pursuits can put more people in danger.

James McMahan, policy director of Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, said that officers are still required to perform “the balancing test.” For example, if an officer saw someone in a school zone with expired tabs, they likely would not begin a chase because it poses more harm to chase.

Still, experts on the issue argued that vehicular pursuits are ineffective and pose unnecessary risks.

Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who has been studying police pursuits nationally for 30 years, cited a 2018 case when Milwaukee, Wisconsin took away restrictions on police pursuit.

“Our data showed that pursuits increased 100 percent, 98 percent, something like that, and it was basically signing a death sentence to people on the road, because the police started chasing everything,” Albert said. “The deaths, the crashes, the destruction, was horrible, and that’s been seen in other cities around the country.”

Josh Parker, senior counsel at the policing project at NYU School of Law, cited similar studies in arguing against the bill, but also drew attention to how it can put officers at risk.

“Not surprisingly, these pursuits result in officer injuries and deaths at alarming rates,” Parker said. “A recent study found that pursuits account for more than 5 percent of all line of duty officer deaths.”

Mason County Sheriff Ryan Spurling explained how officers see pursuits.

“I don’t think any of us like pursuits,” Spurling said. “I’ve been doing this 36 years and pursuits are dangerous. We need to find other alternatives. We don’t choose to pursue. The person chooses to flee.”

Spurling explained that often when people choose to flee, they have committed multiple crimes, and that’s where “the balancing test,” comes in.

“My family drives in the community,” Spurling said. “I don’t want officers pursuing somebody for a taillight out and hitting my family head-on and killing them, but that’s the balancing test. There’s no question we have to balance that out every day.”

While the initiative passed with bipartisan support, some lawmakers voted no.

State representative Debra Entenman, (D-Kent), said she worked hard with community stakeholders and the Coalition for Police Accountability to change the law in 2021. As a Black woman, Entenman emphasized that she feels this initiative is silencing voices and urged a “no” vote.

“We were trying to ensure that there was less contact in communities of color with police,” Entenman said. “Because statistics have proven that when there is that contact, Black and brown young men especially do not get to go home to their families.”

State senator Manka Dhingra, (D-Redmond), also cited that her district’s standards are more restrictive than the 2113’s standard of pursuit. Other lawmakers echoed this, explaining they believed discretion should be left to individual jurisdictions.

Walsh and others who have closely worked on the initiatives explained individual jurisdictions still have the power to impose more restrictions if they want, but 2113 sets the standard.

“An agency can always be more restrictive. The problem is the baseline in state law is already too restrictive,” Walsh said. “2113 restores it to a rational standard by which the law can be enforced.” 

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