High-speed chase fatality shines light on policing practices

Georgia policymakers and advocates are demanding answers after a high-speed pursuit left an innocent person dead in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood.

“Investigators say a [Georgia State Patrol, also known as the GSP] trooper tried to stop 23-year-old Faduma Mohamed on Interstate 20 eastbound near Boulevard after observing her speeding and weaving through traffic,” reported Fox 5 News.

“When she failed to pull over, the trooper initiated a pursuit that exited the highway. The chase ended at the intersection of Moreland Avenue and McLendon Avenue. Officials say Mohamed ran a red light, hitting a Honda driven by 19-year-old Cooper Schoenke.” Schoenke subsequently passed away.

Following this tragedy, a group of activists hosted a press conference and called for policing reforms, although I am not sure their demands were entirely consistent with one another. However, Atlanta City Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari simply exclaimed, “Chases should not happen, chases are not safe.”

There’s some truth in that statement. High-speed pursuits generally are not safe. I was nearly ensnared in one when I was in college. I was sitting in gridlock traffic when a suspect nearly clipped my vehicle followed by two squad cars. They were so close that my vehicle shook. Other innocent bystanders have not been so lucky, but the data isn’t exactly clear on the matter.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collects data on this, but it has faced scrutiny for underreporting. Nevertheless, the information suggests that some 201 people have died in Georgia’s high-speed police chases from 2018-2022. Most of these were not innocent bystanders. Meanwhile, according to 11 Alive News, “From 2019 to 2023, Georgia Department of Public Safety personnel—almost always GSP troopers—were involved in nearly 7,000 vehicle pursuits.” At least 15 innocent people died as a result and hundreds of bystanders were injured. Even though these data sets are incomplete, these are still eye-popping numbers compared to other states.

Despite this, state lawmakers are unlikely to abolish high-speed chases no matter how much some activists want them to be. Banning them would represent a get-out-of-jail-free-card to some criminals. If police could no longer pursue suspects, then they would increase their speed and force police to abandon their pursuit and probably engage in more crime. Don’t believe me? Look at out-of-state jurisdictions that refused to arrest misdemeanor shoplifters; shoplifting surged afterward.

A statewide, top-down one-size-fits-all approach to high-speed chases also presents challenges. Population density, amount of pedestrian traffic, topography and so forth varies by jurisdiction, which requires specialized approaches. However, more data could inform some less broad state legislative or substantive local reforms to meaningfully mitigate the risk to innocent lives.

Georgia’s current model allows local departments and the GSP to set their own standards and protocols, which makes some sense, and much of the decision is left up to the discretion of the officer and/or his superior so long as they follow their department’s guidelines. Since these are split-second decisions, officers need to be trained to make critical, objective decisions over whether risky high-speed chases are justified.

Even so, policymakers would be wise to seek full data-sets to better understand the scope and impact of high-speed pursuits in Georgia. To that end, agency officials or state lawmakers could require that all Peach State law enforcement entities report every high-speed chase to a central and accessible database—including location of the incident, time of day, what the individual was suspected of doing, tactics used by the officer, etc.

Instead of asking for more information like this, those at the press conference decided to cast aspersions. “GSP’s pursuit policy isn’t about public safety—it’s about projecting power, no matter the cost to human life. The Georgia State Patrol is operating with outdated policies that endanger the public and create a ‘Dukes of Hazards’-like environment on our streets,” the National Police Accountability Project said.

That kind of response will not get you far in Georgia, and in fact, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office clapped back: “It is heartbreaking to see such a young life taken at the hands of a criminal seeking to evade justice […] Those who break the law and act recklessly are to blame for the tragic and needless loss of these lives, and it’s shameful that anyone would seek to diminish the actions of those who caused these deaths and shift blame onto those who put their lives on the line every day to safeguard our communities.”

We may not know all of the details of the Little Five Points crash until a more thorough investigation is conducted, but high-speed pursuits of some degree will continue to be a tool in officers’ toolboxes. Could they be conducted in a better manner? Certainly, and better data collection can help us determine viable options for making them safer.

Until then, we know one thing for certain: A terrible tragedy unfolded in Little Five Points.