EL PASO, Texas (KTEP) - An independent report commissioned by El Paso County comparing law enforcement pursuit policies found the Texas Department of Public Safety’s guidelines “inadequate” for failing to meet local as well as national standards. The state’s pursuit policy fails to “prioritize public safety” or seek alternatives to dangerous high-speed chases by troopers, according to the County report presented to the El Paso County Commissioner's court Monday, Jan. 6. According to the report, the policy “inappropriately” puts the decision to initiate high-speed pursuits on individual troopers. The report comes on the heels of an investigation by KTEP News on the rise of dangerous DPS pursuits on highways, roads and in neighborhoods in El Paso, all part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border enforcement initiative Operation Lone Star. Texas state troopers pursue drivers suspected of transporting undocumented immigrants at speeds often reaching more than 100 miles an hour.Texas DPS has repeatedly declined requests for an interview about the state’s pursuit policy. KTEP News reporting the past two years involved visiting numerous collision sites after high speed chases, data and mapping of the areas where the pursuits happened most often, interviews with witnesses and bystanders and an El Paso family caught up in the DPS border enforcement crackdown by mistake, forced off the road and held at gunpoint in 2023. KTEP also interviewed one of the young drivers involved in a high speed chase with DPS now serving a five-year sentence for human smuggling after a pursuit ended with injuries to several of the migrants in his vehicle. El Paso County commissioned their report as pursuits ending in injuries continued to rise in 2024. Former staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Shaw Drake prepared the report that includes a comparison of pursuit policies by other area law enforcement, including the El Paso Police Department, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, Border Patrol and the guidelines provided by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). “The DPS policy provides a wide range of flexibility to DPS officers to pursue vehicles on the back of very little information and does not put clear restrictions in place,” Drake told KTEP News. “(DPS’ policy) has general language around protecting public safety but does not specifically limit pursuits in key ways that other policies do.” The El Paso County Attorney’s Office may provide commissioners with actions they could take including submitting a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Commissioners Court may also take the issue to El Paso’s state delegation to advocate for changes in the DPS pursuit policy ahead of the Texas Legislative session which begins later this month. According to a KTEP News analysis of DPS data, speed during a pursuit can range from 60 to 133 miles an hour. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 22 there were 258 pursuits with 24% ending in a collision. Some caused death and injuries to people in the pursued vehicle as well as bystanders. “Other policies limit pursuits as it relates to speed, as it relates to location of the pursuit, whether the pursuit is taking place in a crowded public area or passed a sensitive location like a school,” Drake said. “Almost all the other policies also restrict what information is required to justify beginning a pursuit, including restrictions that essentially say a pursuit should not be undertaken unless there is information that the person that is fleeing is wanted for some sort of violent crime.” More than 80 percent of pursuits were initiated on a suspicion of a traffic violation, according to DPS’ data. PERF guidelines recommended officers only pursue suspects when a violent crime is committed and the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime. In 2023, Border Patrol changed its pursuit policy acknowledging “vehicle pursuits do inherently pose risk to members of the public, officers and agents and those in a vehicle being pursued who may not be willing participants.” And, in El Paso, EPPD changed its policy in 2021 to require officers to demonstrate a “clear and immediate threat to the public” to justify engaging in a high-speed pursuit. During a chase, state troopers are required to inform a supervisor so they may “review and evaluate” each pursuit, according to a copy of the DPS manual. But “the decision of when to abandon a chase can only be made by the officer involved,” the manual states. DPS requires troopers consider several factors before chasing a suspect including population density of an area, road conditions, weather and visibility. They are also required to consider the type of crime and whether a suspect can be arrested later. DPS dashcam video obtained by KTEP News shows several of the dangerous high speed chases including those ending in a collision. KTEP News has reported on several pursuits involving young drivers behind the wheel. In October 2024 while fleeing DPS 17-year-old Joseph Maldonado blew through a red light with six migrants in a car and hit a Toyota Corolla killing Wendy Rodriguez who was driving to work according to an arrest document. El Paso County’s analysis included data from January 2018 to June 2024 of over 12,000 pursuits across the State of Texas. The county’s review found that a majority of the time traffic violations were the stated reason for initiating a pursuit according to a sample of DPS chases. In more than half of the El Paso cases, 54% of suspects were drivers under the age of 25, with 11 percent under 18. “These are very young folks involved in these pursuits,” Assistant County Attorney Bernardo Cruz said. “If you know that the vast majority are very young drivers that should be something that the law enforcement officer should at least have as part of their internal decision making.” Law enforcement agencies across the country have moved toward limiting high-speed chases, Drake said. “It is not worth the risk to officer safety, the risk to public safety, or the risk to the safety of the individuals fleeing to conduct a pursuit on the backs of suspicion of a misdemeanor crime,” he said.