There are no standard police chase laws in place in Ohio, and with 29 law enforcement agencies in Montgomery County, it’s basically every department for itself when it comes to chases.
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The intersection of Free Pike and State Route 49 in Trotwood is the latest location of a deadly crash during a police chase in the Miami Valley.
Three people in a black Pontiac slammed into an RTA bus Sunday night, two of those people were killed and seven were injured.
The driver of the car is in the hospital and allegedly sped away from Trotwood police after a traffic stop was initiated. RTA Executive Director said the car was going 100 mph when the crash happened.
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News Center 7 is working to get answers from police about why they tried to pull over that car to begin with and asking if this chase was necessary.
Trotwood Police Chief Erik Wilson said it’s still under investigation as to why his officer tried to pull over the car.
“At this time, I do not have that answer, it’s still early in the investigation,” he said.
This incident isn’t the first time a police chase turned deadly in our area.
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Last month, Alyssa-Irwin Debraux was sentenced to 13 years in prison after she led Moraine police on a chase in a stolen SUV that reached 80 mph on State Route 741 through Miami Twp.
During the chase, another car swerved to avoid Debraux’s on-coming SUV, clipping Mary Taulbee’s car and sending it spinning into the path of the oncoming cruiser. Taulbee was killed in the impact.
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A Professor Emeritus from the University of Dayton School of Law said there’s no policy in place, but there should be.
“There’s no absolute, uniform set of procedures that all departments have to follow, they basically set their own,” said Tom Hagel.
Hagel thinks the state should have a uniform policy including variables like time of day, traffic volume and the severity of charges.
“…In the form of a statues that creates a statute that sets it out or make it part of the Ohio Administration Code that would make it mandatory for all police departments to follow it,” he said.
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As of now, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office has a set of guidelines for chase policy, but those are just suggestions. It would take the state legislature stepping in to make it a law.
State Representative Phil Plummer said he’s planning on introducing a bill in Columbus to make a uniform chase police law in Ohio.