Experiment over for Wasilla police

WASILLA — Mobile spike strips attached to police cars are just too risky, the city’s new police chief has decided.

“If it becomes kind of an accepted-type device in mainstream law enforcement I would be much more comfortable adopting it rather than for the Wasilla Police Department to be the first agency,” said Wasilla Police Chief Mike Hughes.

The strips are air-powered and mounted in the push bars on the front bumpers of five Wasilla police cars. Police have had them for less than a year and they were installed before Hughes took over as chief on May 17. Their manufacturer, Pursuit Management Inc., loaned them to the city so officers could help run cold weather tests on them. The manufacturer will be back in town before the snow flies, Hughes said, and will remove the devices then.

Efforts to reach Pursuit Management failed as of press time. The company’s website indicates the devices, dubbed MobileSpike, are also being tested at the Seminole County Sheriff’s office in Flordia.

To use them, officers pull alongside vehicles running from the law, push a button inside the car and slow down slightly. The strips shoot out under the suspect’s vehicle, which runs over them. The tires then slowly deflate.

Pursuits, even without the new device, are the kinds of things that tend to generate lawsuits for police departments. An unproven device, Hughes said, simply presents too much liability.

Pursuits are also dangerous enough without adding a wildcard to the mix. Officers are discouraged from pulling up alongside vehicles they are pursuing, something that is necessary to use the vehicle-mounted strips.

The strips were only used once outside of a controlled testing environment. In early May, Officer Jentry Crain used them to stop a driver near Parks Highway and Church Road who was running from officers in a stolen minivan.

Crain said at the time that they spikes deployed without a hitch and quickly ended the pursuit. He recounts the incident in a testimonial on Pursuit Management’s website.

Larger departments in bigger cities actually have divisions that test new technologies and craft good policies for their use, Hughes said. Companies marketing new technology also often do a lot of legwork proving their products are safe and effective.

“Taser is probably the best example. It started slow and then over time it stood the test of litigation. It had tons and tons of testing. They are willing as a company to come in and say, ‘Here is our product, here is the testing of our product,’” Hughes said. “It’s gone through the evolution that I want to see before I’m willing to adopt something.”

Everything his officers use has gone through that same kind of testing and trail-and-error — except for the mobile spike strips.

Hughes said his officers still have a reliable alternative. Wasilla uses hand-deployed tire-deflation devices — basically that same strip of spikes except kept in a patrol car’s trunk and slid out onto the road in front of an fleeing vehicle. And he doesn’t think his move has caused his officers much heartache.

“Some might be disappointed that they don’t have it,” he said, but he hasn’t heard any grumbling.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.