Connecticut's law enforcement officers have been criticized, demoralized, demonized, marginalized, and now neutered. Prior to the police accountability fiasco, which completely handcuffed the fine men and women in blue, Connecticut enacted the " Uniform Statewide Pursuit Policy." The nine-page guideline serves as the minimum standard for all police pursuits in Connecticut.

The first paragraph under the heading of "Procedures" states, "A police officer may only engage another vehicle in pursuit if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the driver or occupant has committed or is attempting to commit a crime of violence, or there are exigent circumstances that warrant the need to apprehend the suspect in a timely manner because of the potential for harm to the public if the apprehension does not occur. The officers must be able to articulate the exigent need to apprehend the driver or occupant because of the potential harm or risk to the public. Offenses that constitute Infractions, property crimes, (to include stolen motor vehicles), non-violent misdemeanors, and non-violent felonies shall not be justification to engage in a pursuit of another vehicle, absent articulable exigent circumstances. "

Hypothetical Case One

It's 7 p.m. and Mr. MacDonald is rolling along Interstate 95 heading north and nearing exit 74 in East Lyme. MacDonald, in a late-model, stolen Cadillac DeVille, accelerates over 85 miles per hour, inadvertently passing a patrolling state trooper. The officer flips on the siren and lights and pulls Mr. MacDonald over just south of Flanders Four Corners.

With cars whizzing past on the crowded highway, the trooper walks in the breakdown lane, ready to ask for the driver's license and registration. However, Mr. MacDonald decides he doesn't want a ticket and hits the gas, zooming away. Since a high-speed pursuit might actually be considered dangerous, the officer decides not to engage.

As it turns out, Mr. MacDonald had both felony domestic abuse and sexual misconduct warrants on his rap sheet, and, exactly one month to the day after avoiding the police stop, he stabs his former girlfriend to death.

Hypothetical Case Two

It's a hot and muggy July afternoon when a rookie police officer witnesses a small, light blue Dodge Dakota roll through a stop sign on Garfield Avenue in New London. The truck has no plates, a busted taillight, and veered ever so slightly crossing over the median line before swerving back into the proper lane. Noting all these things, the officer hits the lights to pull the truck over.

Almost immediately, after the patrol car’s blue and red lights start flashing, the truck operator floors it and speeds away, heading in the direction of a residential neighborhood. The officer calls off the chase after considering the pursuit policy and the information available to him/her at the time.

The policy states, "A pursuit shall not be undertaken, unless and until the officer, based upon the information available to him/her at the time, shall make an objectively reasonable determination that the threat of imminent death or serious physical injury to the officer, the public or both, created by the pursuit is less than the immediate or potential danger to the public, should the suspect(s) or occupant(s) remain at large."

Sadly, the driver of that truck was, in fact, intoxicated. Less than 45 minutes after fleeing the patrol car, his truck strikes a minivan killing a 25-year-old woman. Her three children are left without a mother, her husband without a wife.

Hypothetical Case Three

Forty-nine-year-old Marcus's life has gotten abundantly easier recently. A multiple-time felon and lifetime loser, Marcus is crafty and fully aware of the limitations police now face. He waits for a rainy night, steals a nondescript vehicle in Waterbury, fills the trunk with cocaine and Fentanyl, slaps a stolen plate on the back and heads for his drop point in New London.

Marcus and his drug-dealing buddies realize that police will not forcibly stop him. So, despite rolling up behind Marcus and recognizing the vehicle to be stolen, the trooper must suspend any further action once the driver makes make a break for it. According to the Unified Statewide Pursuit Policy, "the immediate danger to the public and the police officer created by the pursuit is more than the immediate danger to the public and the underlying crime for which the operator or occupants are suspected of committing."

Marcus makes his drop. The drugs circulate through our region.

Such ridiculous protocols allow anyone the opportunity to flout the law, placing state troopers and local police departments at an extreme disadvantage. This continuing erosion of the ability of police to do their jobs has placed society in danger.

Lee Elci is the morning host for 94.9 News Now radio, a station that provides "Stimulating Talk" with a conservative bent.