by David Clarke
At 4:25, the call from Andrew Chevrolet came into the police station. Glendale police almost immediately spotted the vehicle on area streets and started pursuing it. My office was notified of the pursuit when Nash drove the stolen SUV onto Interstate 43, because the Milwaukee Sheriff’s Department patrols freeways as part of its essential law enforcement services.
One of my deputies on the interstate pulled over into the emergency lane when she heard the call. Soon enough, she saw a silver SUV coming up in lane 2. Behind the Tahoe was a black-and-white squad car that she believed to be the initiating police.
“Should I stop this vehicle?” she radioed.
“We’re taking a trailing position” came the response from the Glendale police. High-speed chases are incredibly dangerous, one of the riskiest activities for an officer. The North Shore police had canceled the pursuit because of the heavy traffic that afternoon. “We’re not requesting that you stop him.”
My deputy, who was dressed in full duty uniform, was driving a marked police car but hadn’t turned on her lights or sirens. Neither did the black-and-white police car trailing the suspect. My deputy switched from lane 2 to lane 3 to allow the suspect vehicle to pass her. Instead of passing, however, Nash suddenly swerved from his lane into her lane in an attempt to hit her squad car. She darted into the emergency lane to avoid being struck.
“He tried to ram me,” she said into the radio.
The police didn’t want to chase him at high speed, but they couldn’t ignore his maneuver indicating he was violent and dangerous. A highspeed chase began.
The speed limit was fifty-five miles per hour, and he sped away with my deputy in pursuit, now with the squad car’s lights and sirens on. By the time Nash approached South Sixth Street, he was driving seventy-nine miles per hour in the emergency lane. Without warning, he braked. My deputy swerved back into the first lane to avoid a rear-end collision, but then Nash deliberately swerved into her lane to try to hit her car. He sped up to ninety, then slowed down to fifty-five. Faster and slower. Left and right. I don’t know specifically who was on the road that afternoon, but undoubtedly there were men and women coming home from work, moms and dads carpooling children, young drivers on the interstate for their first time, and older drivers who might not have the reflexes they once enjoyed. All, unknowingly, possible victims.
Then the situation became more complicated. “It looks like the suspect might have a shotgun,” she advised the dispatcher on her radio. Though she couldn’t see the object he was holding, it looked as though he was racking rounds into a gun. The deputy began to worry about the commuters on the road as she noticed items flying out of the suspect’s driver’s-side window. It looked like wads of paper—money—and compact discs in hard cases. Other officers in pursuit reported that compact discs had hit their windshields.
Some drivers, no doubt after seeing all of the emergency vehicles in their rearview mirrors, pulled over into the right-hand emergency lane. At one point, Nash swerved into the distress lane to hit the car of a citizen who’d tried to get out of the way. The driver realized what was happening and managed to move far enough over to avoid a collision. Nash then immediately swerved left in an attempt to hit another civilian vehicle in the second lane. That driver swerved into the first lane and avoided being hit.
“Dispatch,” my deputy said into her radio, “the suspect vehicle has attempted to ram two civilian vehicles. And I believe,” she squinted to make sure she was seeing the scene correctly, “I believe he’s taking his shirt off.” Driving at a high rate of speed on a packed freeway while the police are chasing you is one thing. Doing all of this while disrobing? That’s even more dangerous. The situation was spiraling out of control.
“This is Squad 453 requesting permission to terminate the pursuit,” my deputies heard another say over the radio. “Terminate the pursuit” sounded so clean and easy, but this intervention, known as a PIT, short for precision immobilization technique, requires the deputy’s squad car to strike the side rear of the suspect’s auto. Here’s how it works: the deputy aligns his front bumper behind the suspect’s back wheel well. Once he gets in that position—mind you, going at a high rate of speed—the deputy steers his squad car right into the fleeing vehicle. If it is done perfectly, the suspect’s car is sent into a spin. Most of the time, the fleeing car will stall, which gives the backup police time to surround the suspect. In the best-case scenario, neither the officer nor the suspect is harmed. However, by law, this maneuver is considered to be deadly force because at such a high speed, the fleeing driver could be seriously injured or killed.
There was a long pause on the radio after the officer’s request, then a one-word response from the sergeant: “Affirmative.”
The rest of the squad cars backed off, allowing this deputy to become the primary pursuit vehicle. That gave the officer enough space to perform the maneuver in a section of the freeway where traffic volume had lessened. Squads from other jurisdictions cleared the area by closing ramps to prevent additional cars from entering the freeway.
At 4:43, it was time to stop this chase. The deputy lined up his vehicle with the Tahoe and veered into it—T-boning it. Both vehicles lurched to the left, hitting a retaining wall. The squad car spun, rolled onto the driver’s side, and then landed with its rear in the left emergency lane. The suspect’s vehicle bounced off the median, continued westbound in the southbound lanes, and struck the retaining wall in a head-on collision.
As the January evening grew dark, my deputies parked their squad cars and advanced toward him in their trained tactical approach for a felony stop: weapons drawn.
“Show me your hands!” a deputy shouted as he approached the suspect. “Show me your hands!” Dark smoke poured from the Tahoe, obscuring the officer’s view of Nash. The officer heard someone racking a shotgun, which caused the officer to yell again, “Show me your hands!”
He moved to get a better view of the suspect, who by that time was out of the vehicle. When Nash finally came into view, the deputy saw that his hands were open and empty.
“Lie on the ground,” he shouted. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”
Nash got facedown on the interstate, next to the driver’s side of the stolen vehicle. One deputy—who happened to have experience in Expressway Patrol Operations on the SWAT team, with the Detective Bureau, and as an undercover officer in narcotics—pressed his foot on Nash’s neck while waiting for the others to arrive to handcuff him. “Get down on the ground!” he yelled, but Nash continued to struggle. When the other officers arrived, he holstered his weapon and assisted in securing the suspect’s left arm.
“Stop resisting!” a deputy shouted as Nash continued to struggle to get up. An officer grabbed him by the belt loop and pulled him up, forcing him against a concrete barrier and then the stolen vehicle. “Stop resisting!” he yelled again while Nash pushed and pulled his arms away from the deputies. “Stop resisting,” as he tried to get Nash to spread his legs. Without warning, Nash kicked back at the deputy, striking him in the leg.
Finally, they got him into the squad car, where Nash flailed so violently that he kicked out the back window, glass shattering everywhere.
“Yeah, I kicked out your window,” he said before getting a faceful of oleoresin capsicum spray—pepper spray.
While the officers were struggling to get Nash under control, the officer who had performed the PIT technique climbed out of his car, shotgun in hand. The vehicle was still lodged on its side, so he hadn’t wanted to crawl out of the passenger’s-side window only to be attacked by the suspect. He had abrasions on his arm, and his face was bleeding. Otherwise, he looked fine.
They’d done it. The chase covered 17.1 miles, and no one was seriously hurt. When they finally got Nash to the hospital, he was so uncooperative that the nurses had to sedate him three times. Thankfully, Nash suffered only minor injuries, and the doctor released him.
Of course, the incident wasn’t really over. A news helicopter from Milwaukee
’s WTMJ-TV had been following the chase and broadcasting it live to all of Milwaukee.
And, by the way, the suspect was black.
Giving the Police Brutality Myth the “Boot”
I was sitting in my office, looking at a stack of papers that needed signatures.
“Sheriff,” one of my inspectors said as he poked his head in the door, “some deputies are involved in a pursuit of a stolen SUV.”
“What else?” I asked, sensing he had more to say when he lingered at the door.
“It’s being broadcast live by local TV.”
The television that hangs in the upper corner of my office is usually tuned to a news station, so I can keep up with what’s going on in the world. I turned my leather chair around, flipped the television to the local station, and saw the footage of the high-speed chase unfolding right before my eyes.
Before I turned up the volume on the police radio so I could follow the action there, I stopped to say a prayer. At that time, late afternoon commuter traffic would be heavy. I didn’t want some motorist getting hurt or worse. About a person a day is killed because people try to outrun the police.1 Many of those deaths are just innocent bystanders, and I didn’t want that to happen on my watch.
My inspectors sat in the two chairs in front of my desk. They were talking about what they were seeing on screen, but I didn’t join in the conversation. As I watched that pursuit unfold, I got real quiet, silent. I think better when I keep my mouth shut. As the images flickered across the screen, I was processing different scenarios: What if we kill an uninvolved motorist? What if one of my deputies gets killed? What do I say to the media? When? I’m responsible if this thing goes bad. Is it smart for me to stay out of it?
The easy thing for me to do was to take high-risk decision making out of my deputies’ hands, but that’s the cowardly way out. Deciding when, or if, to end this kind of chase is usually made in circumstances full of anxiety and adrenaline, but my people have good field discipline. I expect them to rely on their pursuit driver training, the law with regard to the safety of others, and their own sound judgment. The officers had a street supervisor who was closely monitoring the speed of the pursuit, weather conditions, and traffic volume. I was proud of my law enforcement officers who were choosing to put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public.
As for the fleeing suspect? I wasn’t too worried about him. He made his bed. He could sleep in it.
The pursuit was lasting longer than I like. Half of all crashes occur in the first two minutes of a police pursuit. More than 70 percent of all collisions happen before the pursuit has gone on seven minutes.2 By 4:43 p.m., the pursuit had been going on for eighteen minutes, and the probability of death or severe bodily injury was skyrocketing with every additional erratic action. But I had to exercise restraint. I trusted my officers. I wouldn’t get involved because I wasn’t there. Just listening to the radio and watching TV do not provide enough information to make decisions in the moment.
As I heard the primary pursuit vehicle given permission to perform the requested PIT maneuver, I took a deep breath and said, “God, help us.”
On the screen, I watched as the deputy’s vehicle struck the suspect’s car. I didn’t realize it, but I’d been holding my breath.
I, along with much of Milwaukee, watched as the suspect got out of the car and was ordered to lie on the ground. I bet ratings for this station will be high tonight, I thought.
When the deputy moved in and used his foot to pin the suspect down, resting his foot on the suspect’s neck to keep him from attacking or going for one of the deputies’ weapons. His foot rested on the suspect’s neck, I thought, That isn’t going to go over well.
This incident took place years before the #BlackLivesMatter crowd started harassing the police, but black activists have always been eager to side with the criminal and call out the police for any perceived misstep. Even back in 2003. Black activists always cry, “Police brutality!” no matter what the circumstances, no matter how many people’s lives are put at risk during whatever criminal activity draws the attention of the police in the first place. In recent years, hashtags like #DrivingWhileBlack, #AmeriKKKa, #ICantBreathe, #EndPoliceBrutality, and #WalkingWhileBlack have popped up on social media to protest what activists believe is the rampant, systematic abuse of black people. This protest-by-hashtag began in 2013, after a mostly white jury acquitted George Zimmerman of all charges in connection with the shooting death of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin. I want to remind you that “unarmed” does not mean “not dangerous” under the reasonable officer rule of law standard. (I’ll talk more about that in a later chapter.)
Much of America was disappointed and confused by the Zimmerman ruling, including Alicia Garza, who was sitting in a California bar when the news broke.3 She quickly wrote a letter to black people, urging them to act, to organize, and to realize that black lives matter. Her friend Patrisse Cullors was in Los Angeles when she read Garza’s post. Cullors commented under the post, creating a hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
For those of you who have better things to do than follow social media closely, here’s how that works. When people want to draw attention to what they’re saying on a social media site like Twitter or Facebook, they sometimes put the # symbol before their relevant keyword or phrase (without any spaces) so that it shows up more easily in a search. Also, others can click on a hashtagged word to see other people’s tweets on the same subject. When Garza and Cullors—and another friend named Opal Tometi—promoted #BlackLivesMatter on social media, it caught fire.
The New York Times called it “the 21st century’s first civil rights movement,”4 while others have claimed it’s the most potent racial slogan since “black power.”5 The slogan jumped from phone screens to T-shirts to signs to even an episode of Law & Order: SVU.6 Suddenly, it was more than a hashtag; it was a movement in the form of a political construct popping up when other incidents of racial strife occurred: Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, and Eric Garner. It was an easy and succinct way to encapsulate the frustration people feel about police, and it perpetuated a certain narrative: police are killing black Americans simply because of their skin color. (Never mind that there is no data or research to support such a claim.)
“To hear the media tell it, America is in the grip of an unprecedented crime wave, an orgy of wanton murder in which heavily armed thugs randomly gun down innocent unarmed people, some of them teens, just for sport,” wrote Michael Walsh in the New York Post.7 “Except that these homicidal goons are wearing the blues and badges of American police departments.”
Turns out, that is a terrible lie.
It’s so misguided that I have dropped a letter when referring to the movement. Black LIES Matter seems to be more accurate. I’ve been in law enforcement for decades, and I’ve seen firsthand the care that officers, even white officers, expend—at risk to their own lives—to keep poor minority communities safe. They go about their daily duty, better trained, more educated, and more professional than at any time in our history.
I caused a stir when I appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss this phenomenon. The Black LIES Matter crowd was protesting in Manhattan right after a black police officer was murdered in cold blood. This, even though the main group of people in this nation who really believe black lives matter are the men in blue who put on the uniform and go into the inner cities, trying to prevent people from killing each other. When we see the black-on-black crime that happens every single day across America, there’s not one single sound of protest from the Black LIES Matter crowd. They’re too busy sitting in coffee shops, drinking their lattes, and being snarky on social media to demand change in behavior from the criminals targeting other members of the black community. When I was in the studio and saw the footage of the protestors calling the police horrible names and screaming at them, I have to be honest, it made my blood boil.
“First of all, there is no police brutality in America,” I said. I could almost hear the liberals in
America collectively gasping. By that, I didn’t mean that specific incidents never happen across the country. Brutality is defined as savage physical violence. That might describe foreign terrorists or even Planned Parenthood harvesting baby parts to sell to the highest bidder, but not American policing. I meant that police brutality is no longer systemic, nor is it condoned within our ranks; it is episodic, and we self-correct when we learn about it. “Show me the data, show me the research that demonstrates and supports the lie that law enforcement officers use an inordinate amount of force against black people,” I went on to say. “Black people use an inordinate amount of force against themselves and each other in the American ghetto. It is not true about the American police officer, and I’m not going to let anyone come on TV and advocate that.”
Here’s a Novel Idea—Look at Actual Numbers
Guess what? Now a major newspaper is backing me up. In response to the Black LIES Matter allegations, the Washington Post did something no one else had ever attempted: reporters recorded every fatal police shooting in 2015 that occurred in America. What did they find in their year-long study? Less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings were of unarmed black people. Here’s the money quote: “The great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.”8 Also, in 75 percent of these fatal shootings, “police were under attack or defending someone who was.” This caused National Review to conclude, “The chances of an innocent black man being gunned down by racist cops are vanishingly small.”9
Michael Walsh writing in a New York Post article put it succinctly: “You have a better chance of being killed in a violent storm (1 in 68,000) or slipping in the tub (1 in 11,500) than being shot by a cop, no matter what color you are.”10