For years, high-speed pursuits by the Georgia State Patrol have been a staple of the local news in metro Atlanta and across Georgia. But no journalist had ever dug deep enough to understand why state troopers chase so often and to explain the full impact these chases have on Georgians. That all changed when Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters started asking questions and gathering records, data and stories of people harmed during GSP pursuits. The series that was published over the past year revealed that the Georgia State Patrol is one of the most aggressive state police agencies nationwide and the agency contributes significantly to Georgia having the worst death rate for police pursuits in the country. Reporters Asia Simone Burns and Justin Price examined data and records from 6,700 GSP pursuits over a five-year period and found that more than half ended in crashes. The level of harm was staggering. Some 1,900 people were injured and 66 killed. Half of those harmed in patrol chases were bystanders or passengers. They include a three-month-old infant and his aunt killed by a fleeing driver at a stoplight in Atlanta and a pedestrian in Savannah cleaved in half by a driver racing away from a trooper. The reporting was detailed, nuanced and sophisticated. It went beyond simple accounting of chases and explained how the patrol ended up as such an outlier. The reporters filed nearly 100 public records requests. They reviewed pursuit policies from almost every state patrol agency in the country. That reporting found that GSP has one of the most permissive policies in the country, allowing troopers almost total discretion to chase anyone, for any infraction. One installment in the series focused on a risky stop tactic called a precision immobilization technique. It involves troopers using their cars to intentionally contact the back of a fleeing car to force it off the road. Police pursuit experts were surprised by our reporting that analyzed data from thousands of pursuits to reveal the patrol routinely conducts these risky maneuvers at high speeds, sometimes at more than 100 mph. One series installment explained how specific exemptions in Georgia state law shielded the state patrol and other state law enforcement officers from civil liability, which is one factor explaining why the agency has no icentive to change its reckless pursuits. The series has moved the needle in Georgia in terms of the public’s understanding of the state patrol’s pursuits. This was clear in April when a bystander was killed in Atlanta during a GSP pursuit. Activists and public officials all cited the AJC’s reporting and the solutions we outlined as they called for reform in the state patrol. The Atlanta City Council voted in May to urge Georgia to take action to curb the reckless pursuits by the state patrol. It remains an open question whether a Republican-controlled state will curb police powers, but for the first time the public and policymakers have an informed understanding of the problem because of the AJC’s reporting.
