By Jason Trahan and Tanya Eiserer
Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — It’s one of the most dangerous scenarios for a law enforcement officer: approaching a driver sitting in an idling vehicle.
As two weekend incidents in Dallas illustrate, things can go so wrong within seconds that police officers are dragged and injured as they try to subdue drivers. Suspects can be shot or even killed.
Policing experts say they’ve not found any surefire way to protect officers from injury or death in these tense situations. But on the horizon is technology that will someday allow officers to use an electromagnetic pulse to fry a vehicle’s electronics, killing the engine before draggings can occur.
“We are reviewing what kind of alternatives, if any, officers have in these types of circumstances,” Police Chief David Kunkle said. “We always want to create an environment that is safe as possible for officers knowing the inherent risk that they face.”
Every traffic stop “has the potential of being a shootout,” said Senior Cpl. Lance Crawford, a 20-year veteran who was dragged 50 yards by a carjacking suspect last fall. He helps teach police recruits how to conduct traffic stops.
“We do teach on traffic stops that you never reach into the vehicle, but there’s always exceptions,” Crawford said. “We have to look at all the circumstances. You have to put yourself in the officer’s shoes.”
Within 24 hours of each other, a rookie and a veteran Dallas officer made split-second decisions that nearly cost them their lives. What will never be known is how many lives their actions saved.
What happened
At 8:15 p.m. Friday, Senior Cpl. Brian Payne, 36, and rookie Officer Laura Robeson stopped Eric Foreman after they saw him driving his pickup the wrong way near Empire Central Drive and Harry Hines Boulevard. The officers told the man, who was sweating profusely and incoherent, to step out of the vehicle. Instead, he turned the steering wheel toward them and the car lurched forward.
As Payne reached inside the open window, Foreman punched the gas. Payne held on and was dragged. Foreman accelerated. Payne yelled at the driver to stop or he would shoot, and eventually he shot the man in the stomach. Both are expected to recover.
Less than 24 hours later, about 7:20 p.m. Saturday, Officer Matthew Antkowiak, 35, who was hired in August 2007, and his partner were answering a disturbance call in the West End. A Hooters manager pointed out two men inside an Infiniti. The men had been drinking, but it’s unclear whether they were intoxicated, police later said.
Antkowiak walked up to the passenger side while his partner went to the driver’s side. The driver accelerated, entangling Antkowiak in the passenger-side door and dragging him several hundred feet as the car struck several vehicles. His partner fired one shot at the driver but missed.
Detectives have not been able to interview Antkowiak, who was taken to Baylor University Medical Center, to find out exactly what transpired.
In 2000, Cincinnati police Officer Kevin Crayon received massive head injuries after he was dragged while trying to take the keys out of a vehicle driven by a 12-year-old. Crayon died from his wounds. So did the child driver, whom Crayon shot.
Often, an officer has precious little time to figure out how to stop someone from driving off. Pepper spray can make things worse by blinding a driver who can still speed off. Tasers can be unwieldy in close quarters.
Other options are few: Block the suspect’s car with a squad car (which is forbidden by Dallas police policies), yank the person from the vehicle, or disable the car by snatching the keys or engaging the emergency brake.
“When you reach into someone’s car, you’re entering their turf,” said Ed Nowicki, executive director of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association in Wisconsin.
“You don’t want a fair fight, you want an unfair fight,” he said. “You want to get them out of their turf as fast as you can.”
Research is under way that could give officers another option.
Military scientists and private labs in California and Michigan are developing “directed energy” beams that could be aimed at a vehicle and fry its circuitry.
“Getting the right frequencies in the right amounts to disable the target car, and not yours – that’s the challenge,” said Sgt. Brian Muller, who heads the Less-Lethal Technology Exploration Project at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The department has teamed up with a nearby aerospace lab to study the technology, which Muller characterized as emerging.
Until then
For now, officers will sometimes have to use fists or bullets to keep someone dangerous from driving off and possibly into pedestrians, other cars or even people’s homes or businesses. And as with most decisions in police work, the second-guessing begins almost as soon as the crime scene tape comes out.
“If you don’t do anything and he speeds away and hurts somebody, you’re in trouble,” said DPD’s Crawford. “If you do something and he speeds off and you have to shoot him, you’re probably going to get in trouble.
“The officer has to make a decision right then.”