Los Angeles Police Unveil New Weapons to Halt High-Speed Pursuits

The car chase capital of the world, Los Angeles, CA, has been notorious for years as the home of high-speed pursuits that endanger the lives and property of the public. There were more than 600 high-speed pursuits in Los Angeles last year and more than 100,000 nationwide. Politicians and lawmakers have long questioned the wisdom of police pursuits because of the threat they pose, not only to the people involved in the pursuit, but to innocent bystanders and police officers.

Police Chief William J. Bratton, when asked why there are so many pursuits in Los Angeles, didn’t hesitate to get right to the point. "There are a lot of nuts here," he said. The danger posed by high-speed pursuits is an unnecessary one, because as many as 85% of those pursuits are initiated by non-violent offenders. The economic impact of the pursuits is overwhelming, costing the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars because of insurance claim payouts, medical bills, workers’ compensation claims, and lost wages.

In an effort to stem the tide of pursuits, the U.S. Department of Justice is testing the StarChase system in Los Angeles. Several police patrol cars will be fitted with compressed air launchers that a policeman can use to fire adhesive darts at a fleeing car. The darts contain small global positioning system receivers in a sticky compound about the size of a golf ball. "Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour," Bratton said, "this device allows us not to have to pursue after the car. It allows us to start vectoring where the car is."

Once the suspect’s car has been tagged, its exact position is transmitted wirelessly from the StarChase tracking device. The police dispatch center can view the location of the suspect’s vehicle in real time, and then coordinate resources to apprehend the suspect in a safe and efficient way. The StarChase system is just one more step forward in the law enforcement community’s efforts to use non-lethal technologies that are efficient, while reducing the risk of liability imposed by traditional pursuit methods. Many North American law enforcement officers are eagerly awaiting the results of the Los Angeles deployment, because of this powerful tool’s ability to save money and save lives.

The StarChase system is affordable, accurate, and adaptable, made of a commercial "off the shelf" oriented solution. The launcher can be either hand-held or mounted on a police car. The concept for the StarChase system was developed at Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC) Public Safety Integration Center in McLean, VA. The platform is a heavily encrypted Web-based solution that requires no special hardware. The usage of StarChase darts is permissible in court and preserves the chain of evidence. Proof-of-concept field trials have been successful and will be deployed in 2006.