CINCINNATI — Cincinnati police say a suspect in a “street takeover” early Sunday morning drove off and evaded police.
Video shows cars blocking the intersection of 2nd and Race streets just before 3 a.m. Sunday. One car could be seen doing burnouts while other cars stopped traffic.
A police cruiser could be seen arriving at the scene minutes later. Video shows the car that was doing burnouts take off as the people standing outside watching run to their cars.
Lt. Jonathan Cunningham said officers attempted a traffic stop on a vehicle involved in the incident, but the vehicle fled from officers into Kentucky. He said that officers in Kentucky tried to stop the same car, but were unsuccessful.
“There is all sorts of handicaps that the police have in this,” said Cincinnati Police Union President Dan Hils.
Hils cited CPD's vehicle pursuit policy as one of them. CPD officers are only permitted to engage in a vehicle pursuit if the person fleeing is suspected of committing a "violent felony offense."
The department updated its policy last year following a deadly crash in 2020 that started as a police chase in Cincinnati.
Raymond and Gayle Laible were killed and two other people were injured outside of Press on Monmouth in Newport after the suspect lost control of his vehicle at high speed.
An internal investigation found officers violated department policy.
“For me personally, there are days that I still don't get out of bed,” Angela Laible Endress, the daughter of Raymond and Gayle Laible, told WCPO last year.
Endress said there are days when she avoids watching the news because she hears about new police pursuits.
Federal data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows a rise in motor vehicle crashes related to police vehicle pursuits between 2015 and 2020.
A new report funded by the Department of Justice recommends departments adopt restrictive vehicle pursuit policies, in which pursuits are limited to serious circumstances, to limit risks.
Hils said those policies make tracking suspects like this down hard.
“You have to identify a driver to have charges hold up in court,” said Hils. “Even if you happen to get a plate, unless you get good interviews and stuff, and that's not necessarily going to happen in the case of a reckless driver.”
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