A Vallejo police pursuit sent a motorcyclist to the hospital after he collided with another vehicle Sunday. The man was then nearly crushed along with his arresting officers when an unsecured police SUV began rolling toward them.
The pursuit began around 1 p.m. Sunday near the intersection of Solano Avenue and Curtola Parkway when a Vallejo officer tried to pull the motorcyclist over for reckless driving, according to dispatch audio. The rider allegedly took off, leading police on a roughly two-minute chase through the city at speeds of up to 77 mph. The chase ended when the motorcycle, traveling at a slower speed, struck a silver Acura MDX, sending the rider flying, according to witnesses and dispatch audio.
Two police officers, including one from an unmarked unit, rushed to arrest the injured rider, witnesses told Open Vallejo. The unmarked police SUV then began rolling toward them, according to multiple witnesses, causing the rider to cry out about being run over. Witnesses said one of the officers sprinted toward the vehicle and stopped it just as it reached the other two men.
According to T. Jones, who witnessed the incident, the SUV “was already into them” by the time the officer placed it in park.
Vallejo police spokesperson Sgt. Rashad Hollis said the vehicle did not run over the rider, whose injuries he described as not life threatening. No officers were injured, Hollis said. He declined to identify the officers involved in the incident.
The collision occurred in the same intersection where a Vallejo police chase turned fatal on July 6. A driver who fled Vallejo police was killed less than half a mile away on July 8. On July 10, a pursuit by American Canyon police injured an 8-year-old in a parked car near the border of the two cities, according to dispatch audio; a 90 mph pursuit by Vallejo police and officers from Contra Costa County resulted in a minor collision during rush hour that same afternoon.
Vallejo police policy does not cap pursuits to a specific speed. Instead, Hollis said, “It’s more of the environment and safety” that determine whether a pursuit presents an acceptable level of risk to officers, suspects, and other members of the public.
“We have a strict pursuit policy that every officer must be in line with,” Hollis said, adding that the agency’s Professional Standards Division reviews every chase. Asked whether recent pursuits have conformed to department policy, Hollis said he was “not aware of them not conforming.”
For Jones, police pursuits have become another form of “aggression” against Vallejo residents.
“Instead of shooting them, they’re chasing them,” she told Open Vallejo. “If they aren’t doing it intentionally, they really need to look at it closely.”
