A BORDER FACT OF LIFE: HIGH-SPEED CHASES

On a quiet November morning, Trooper Johnny Hernandez patrolled the
dusty back roads along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County. In the back
seat, his M4 rifle sat within arm's reach. In the trunk, he stored a
bulletproof vest.

Trooper Hernandez, a 15-year veteran of the Department of Public
Safety, has been in so many high-speed pursuits that he cannot
remember the first one, and he doesn't know which has been the scariest.

There is so much going on, he said, "your thoughts are going 100
miles per hour."

Often, so is his car.

According to department pursuit reports analyzed by The Texas Tribune
and The San Antonio Express-News, officers like Trooper Hernandez on
the United States-Mexico border were involved in far more high-speed
chases from January 2005 to July 2010 than were officers in other
regions of Texas. Statewide, troopers were involved in nearly 5,000
pursuits in that period. About 13 percent of those, 656, were in
Hidalgo County. Of the 10 counties with the most chases, 5 were along
the border.

Data confirms what troopers on the border say is their daily reality:
smugglers are becoming more active and brazen, taking more desperate
measures to evade capture. But troopers also often use aggressive
pursuit tactics -- including firing guns and setting up roadblocks --
that many other law enforcement agencies prohibit.

One expert, Prof. Geoffrey P. Alpert at the University of South
Carolina, said the policies at the Texas Department of Public Safety
allowed troopers to take too many risks, jeopardizing the lives of
officers and citizens. "They're crazy," said Dr. Alpert, who has
studied pursuits at police departments across the country.

Statewide, chases by the department resulted in 1,300 accidents, 780
injuries to officers, pursued drivers and bystanders, 28 deaths and
an estimated $8.4 million in property damage in the last five years.
In Hidalgo County, the chases caused 71 injuries, two deaths and more
than $440,000 in property damage.

Trooper Hernandez and others who patrol the Interstates, highways and
meandering caliche roads that connect the United States and Mexico,
said the primary reason they see the most chases is simple: location.

"We're the first line of defense out here," Trooper Hernandez said.
"We're going to have pursuits."

There is also more of a Department of Public Safety presence, with an
additional 160 troopers assigned to the border since 2006. About a
decade ago, just 20 highway patrolmen worked in Hidalgo County, said
Lt. Armando Garza, who supervises troopers there, but today there are 60.

Lieutenant Garza recently moved back to the border after working for
12 years in Corpus Christi, where, he said, troopers had one or two
chases every three or four months. In Hidalgo County, it is
practically a daily occurrence. The peak, he said, was earlier this
year when there were six in two days, including one that ended when
the driver escaped from his car but was pinned under a train that
severed his arm.

The only thing to do, Lieutenant Garza said, is to remind troopers
not to take unwarranted risks.

The risks do not always result in the fleeing driver in handcuffs. In
about 40 percent of the chases in Hidalgo County, the drivers escaped
on foot -- or swam across the Rio Grande to Mexico. Statewide, more
than 30 percent of the department's chases ended with the driver
escaping on foot. Fewer than a quarter of all drivers, both statewide
and in Hidalgo County, stopped and surrendered.

To avoid arrest, and to get the drugs or the humans they are hauling
into Texas, drivers are getting creative, troopers said. In the last
year, the smugglers started using bags of homemade spikes --nails
welded together in a triangular shape -- to blow out the tires on
patrol vehicles. They also take advantage of dirt roads in rural
areas to kick up dust, reduce visibility and elude officers.

The pursued drivers seem to have little regard even for their own
lives. Last April, Trooper Edwardo Ruiz was blazing down back roads
in Hidalgo County, with siren blaring and lights flashing, in pursuit
of a reckless driver in a black pickup. Suddenly the truck's red
taillights disappeared. Trooper Ruiz, filmed on his car's dashboard
camera, stopped where the road came to a dead end.

"It looks like they grew wings and flew or something," Trooper Ruiz
said to another officer on his cellphone, as he peered into dark, empty fields.

Thirty minutes later, officers found the truck smashed into a canal
on the other side of the dead end. The 18-year-old driver was dead.
His blood-alcohol content was 0.22, nearly three times the legal
limit in Texas.

Department policies allow troopers to engage in riskier chase tactics
than large Texas police and sheriff's departments. Troopers can set
up rolling and stationary roadblocks to end a chase, a strategy they
used 68 times from 2005 to 2010. They can also shoot out a vehicle's
tires if other methods, like deploying spike strips, fail to stop the
pursuit. They fired their guns during chases nearly 90 times over the
last five years, including 14 times in urban areas.

By contrast, the San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth Police
Departments and the Harris County Sheriff's Office prohibit officers
from using their firearms during a pursuit except in self-defense,
and they are not allowed to set up roadblocks to stop a chase.

Trooper Hernandez said that if a driver began to flee, he would
almost certainly give chase, but that he would disengage if it put
the lives of other officers or of the public at risk. Yet only 142 of
the department's nearly 5,000 chases analyzed by The Tribune and The
Express-News -- less than 3 percent -- were terminated voluntarily by
the trooper or a supervisor.

Dr. Alpert said most state highway patrol departments had "very
aggressive, loose policies." In 2007, the Texas department
acknowledged that it needed to do a better job of giving officers
hands-on training after crashes involving troopers rose 30 percent.

"We fall short in providing the necessary practical driver training
to our officers," stated a February 2007 newsletter by the
department's public information office.

At the time, troopers practiced their driving skills at a parking lot
around a football field in Austin. Since then, the department has
built a modern training course, where more than 880 officers have
trained since June 2009.

Department officials and troopers on the border said their training
had improved in recent years and that safety was their top priority.

"We've got families, too," Trooper Hernandez said, "and we want to go
home to them."

Troopers, particularly those on the border, quickly acquire
real-world experience in driving safety and remaining calm, Trooper
Hernandez said.

Standing on the banks of the Rio Grande, between a neighborhood of
mobile homes and a colorful waterfront bar, he recalled when the
river was full of boaters, and locals cooked food on the banks and
enjoyed the breeze. Now the revelers are gone, and he and other
troopers regularly stand guard while workers pull vehicles loaded
with drugs from the muddy river.

"They all run," he said. "It's easy money for them, and they don't
want to get caught."

This article was produced by The Texas Tribune in partnership with
the San Antonio Express-News.