Investigators cordoned off the scene of a fatal crash the afternoon of Oct. 15, 2023, in Anderson. The crash happened as officers from the Pendleton Police Department were pursuing a vehicle into Anderson.
CNHI News Indiana File/Caleb Amick
Jim Collins climbed into an Uber in April 2024.
Minutes later, a driver fleeing Indianapolis police in a high-speed chase slammed into the vehicle, leaving the 83-year-old passenger severely injured.
Two months later, after a lengthy hospitalization, Collins, a retired psychology professor and beloved grandfather, died from his wounds.
“Whether you knew him as Dr. Collins, Goo, Dad, Jim, or James, he no doubt positively impacted your life in some way,” his obituary read. “He will be sorely missed.”
Collins’ death was totally avoidable, according to a lawsuit filed by his widow.
Just prior to the collision, officers were chasing a suspect after a shooting incident. The high-speed pursuit continued along Carvel Avenue — in a densely populated area lined with homes and near public parks.
Among other accusations, the lawsuit states that the Indianapolis police department failed to weigh the urgency of apprehending suspects against dangers to the public and continuing a pursuit “when it is clear the pursuit itself was causing the suspect to drive faster and faster in a dangerous manner.”
The result was a “predictable outcome of a violent crash and fatal injuries to an innocent person,” the suit states.
Every law-enforcement officer in Indiana must consider the factors cited in the lawsuit after state lawmakers in 2022 approved uniform minimum standards for vehicle pursuits.
The policy took effect Jan. 1, 2023, and declares that a “pursuit should not begin, nor should it be continued, when the need for immediate apprehension is very low and the totality of risk to public safety is very high.”
But three years later, the policies set out in the minimum standards appear to have done little to avoid or stop the deaths of innocent people like Collins.
New standards, same fatalities
The state’s new policy for the first time required officers to consider a list of factors before initiating and continuing a police pursuit — standards that most agencies had never implemented before 2023.
Factors to be considered include the suspect’s alleged violation; imminent danger to the public based on all circumstances; officers’ familiarity with the surroundings; and the potential danger if the offender were not apprehended immediately.
However, the policy doesn’t provide specific situations or criteria that clearly define when an officer should not engage in a pursuit. That decision is ultimately left to each officer’s discretion.
Even with standards in place, 18 people died in Indiana as a result of police chases in 2023, according to the most recent crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That’s the 10th highest in the nation for total vehicle-pursuit fatalities, and sixth for the percentage of pursuit deaths (2.11%) compared to the total of all fatal crashes (854) in 2023 in Indiana.
Ohio, which has almost 5 million more people than Indiana, tied with Indiana for the total number of police-chase fatalities but had a far lower pursuit-fatality percentage rate.
The deaths haven’t stopped since then.
Although the national highway administration hasn’t released data from 2024 or 2025, a slew of pursuit fatalities have been reported by police departments around the state in the past two years.
That includes 17-year-old Landon Shaffer and 20-year-old Preston Jett of Marion, who died in August after officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop on their truck shortly after 2 a.m. in Alexandria.
Police said the driver ignored their commands and continued driving “at a high rate of speed” into Anderson. A short time later, while being pursued by police, the driver of the truck lost control and struck a utility pole and two homes.
The same month in Indianapolis, 47-year-old Kevin McKelvey suffered fatal injuries after a suspect fleeing from Carmel police swerved into oncoming traffic and slammed into his vehicle. The father of three and professor at the University of Indianapolis died five days later.
“Kevin was complex and beautiful. His interests were vast and varied,” his obituary read. “He will be profoundly missed and forever remembered.”
‘You can’t get a life back’
It’s no surprise that Indiana’s vehicle-pursuit standards have done little to end the deaths of Hoosiers, argued Josh Parker, deputy director of policy at New York University’s Policing Project. He said years of research and data have shown that policies giving full discretion to officers on when to engage in police pursuits, like Indiana’s policy, lead to more accidents, injuries and fatalities.
Agencies that leave the pursuit decision up to officer discretion engage in eight times as many pursuits as those with a policy that gives clear guidance to officers, according to a special report by the U.S. Department of Justice using data from 2012-2013.
“There’s a growing consensus that restrictive pursuit policies not only further public safety, but save officer and community lives,” Parker said.
The most effective policies allow police pursuits only when a violent crime has been committed and the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime, according a 2023 report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
A case in point: Milwaukee in 2017 loosened its restrictive policy to allow pursuits in reckless driving cases or when a car was linked to drug dealing. The next year, the number of pursuits more than doubled and chases ending with injuries more than tripled, according to an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Nationally, police-vehicle pursuits resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people from 2017 to 2022, more than 500 of whom were innocent bystanders, according to an investigation published last year by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Just 1 of 15 people killed were being chased for violent crimes, the report discovered. The vast majority of the time, police engaged in chases to stop drivers suspected of minor driving infractions like having a broken taillight or other low-level crimes.
Those numbers prove why officers should be allowed to engage only in a pursuit of someone suspected of a violent crime who police believe will commit more violence, argued Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum.
“You can get a suspect another day, but you can’t get a life back,” he said. “We believe policy, training and supervision should all support the core value of policing: the sanctity of human life.”
Better than nothing?
Every new officer training at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy is required to learn about the state’s pursuit policy, according to Executive Director Tim Horty.
During basic training, officers watch a 23-minute video explaining the requirements and accepted practices. Students also hold “robust discussions” about the policy during emergency-vehicle training and criminal-law classes, he noted.
“The overriding message in pursuits is whether the need for apprehension outweighs the risk to public safety,” Horty wrote in an email. “Officers must always use due regard when engaging in pursuits or other emergency driving.”
Some Indiana departments have implemented policies with stricter standards than the minimum requirements. For example, Indianapolis prohibits initiating pursuits based solely on traffic violations, auto theft or the act of fleeing.
Most law enforcement agencies, however, use only the minimum standards, based on an online search of Indiana police department policies. No police departments in the state adhere to the strict guidelines promoted by the Police Executive Research Forum. Those guidelines take into account input from dozens of police department leaders and policing experts from around the country.
Still, the state’s minimum standards do offer some guidance to officers, including options other than pursuit to stop fleeing suspects, such as using roadblocks or tire-deflation devices.
Parker with NYU’s Policing Project said, given those considerations, he would give the state’s policy a C grade. Even so, the minimum standards are no less likely to lead to risky police pursuits that end in injuries or death, he argued.
To mitigate those risks, Indiana lawmakers should make it clear that officers should not engage in a chase unless a violent suspect is fleeing and likely to do more harm, Parker asserted.
“I think elements of it (Indiana’s policy) are better than nothing at all,” he said. “But I don’t think Indiana should be aiming for better than nothing at all. I think it should be aiming for an A rather than a C.”
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