State Police No-Chase Policies: Statutes, Agency Rules, and Lawsuits

No state has a true no-chase law for state police. State police no-chase laws, as the phrase is commonly used, almost always refer to internal department policies rather than statutes, and those policies vary widely from one agency to the next. A handful of states have passed legislation setting minimum pursuit standards, but the vast majority of rules governing when an officer can chase a fleeing driver are set department by department. Two neighboring cities in the same state can operate under very different chase rules.

Why Most Pursuit Rules Come From Agencies, Not Legislatures

The biggest misconception in this area is that states pass broad bans on police chases. In practice, most pursuit guidelines are internal departmental directives. The Illinois State Police directive on vehicle pursuits, for example, explicitly states that it is “a statement of departmental policy and not a statement of law,” and that violating the policy triggers administrative discipline rather than criminal charges.¹ The Ohio Attorney General’s advisory group on pursuits took a similar approach, developing model best practices and recommending that each agency “examine its current pursuit policy and draw at will from the group’s model.”²

Agency-level control means a city police department, a county sheriff’s office, and the state patrol in the same state can all operate under different pursuit thresholds. Some departments restrict chases to violent felonies. Others allow pursuits for any suspected violation. A few impose near-total bans during certain hours or in school zones. And because most of these policies are internal rather than public statutes, civilians often find them hard to track down or compare.

Federal guidance from the Department of Justice tells agencies to “consider applicable state laws when adopting or modifying agency policies,” but the DOJ does not impose a national pursuit standard.³

States That Regulate Pursuits by Statute

Several states have enacted laws that set minimum standards for how agencies handle chases. These statutes don’t strip agencies of discretion, but they do create a floor that every department in the state must meet.

Washington. The most legislatively active state on this issue. Washington has changed its pursuit laws three times since 2021, moving from a near-ban on chases to a much broader standard after voters approved Initiative 2113 in 2024. Officers now need reasonable suspicion that someone violated any law and poses a threat to the safety of others.⁴
California. Vehicle Code Section 17004.7 requires every law enforcement agency in the state to adopt a written pursuit policy with a balancing test that weighs the need for immediate capture against the risk to officers, bystanders, and other drivers. Many California agencies in dense urban areas have adopted restrictive policies limiting pursuits to violent felonies or situations involving an immediate threat to life.⁵
Minnesota. State law requires every agency that conducts a pursuit to file a detailed report with the commissioner of public safety within 30 days, covering the reason for the chase, the distance, duration, outcome, injuries, and property damage.⁶
Wisconsin. The state has adopted administrative code provisions establishing model pursuit standards covering when to initiate, continue, and terminate a chase, which agencies can use when developing their own policies.⁷
Georgia. Rather than restricting when officers can chase, Georgia law addresses liability, providing that an officer’s pursuit is not the proximate cause of injuries inflicted by a fleeing suspect unless the officer “acted with reckless disregard for proper law enforcement procedures.”

States not on this list generally leave pursuit decisions to agency policy and officer discretion.

How Washington’s Pursuit Law Has Shifted

Washington is the clearest example of how politically charged pursuit policy has become. In 2021, the legislature passed House Bill 1054, which raised the standard for initiating a pursuit from reasonable suspicion to probable cause and limited chases to a narrow list of violent crimes. Officers widely criticized the law as effectively banning most pursuits, and critics pointed to rising rates of drivers fleeing traffic stops.

In 2023, Senate Bill 5352 loosened the restriction by restoring the reasonable-suspicion standard for certain offenses, including violent crimes and sex offenses, while requiring that the suspect pose a “serious risk of harm” to others.⁴ Many in law enforcement still argued the 2023 revision was too narrow.

Voters settled the debate in 2024 by approving Initiative 2113, which broadened the list of pursuable offenses to any violation of law and lowered the threat threshold from “serious risk of harm” to simply “a threat to the safety of others.”⁴ Officers must still have reasonable suspicion, obtain supervisor authorization, and determine that the safety risks of not apprehending the suspect outweigh the risks of the chase. Washington’s experience illustrates how fast pursuit policy can swing with political and public pressure.

Restrictive and Permissive Agency Policies

Even in states without pursuit statutes, individual agencies have independently adopted strict standards. The Michigan State Police announced in March 2024 that its officers may only engage in a pursuit when there is probable cause to believe the driver or an occupant has committed a “life-threatening or violent felony.”⁸ That is one of the most restrictive agency-level policies in the country, and it goes further than any Michigan statute requires.

Major city departments in densely populated areas have trended the same direction. The DOJ’s best-practices guide notes that large urban agencies have increasingly limited pursuits to situations involving violent felonies or an imminent threat to life, layering a risk-versus-reward balancing test on top of those restrictions.⁵ The logic is simple: in congested urban traffic, even a short chase at moderate speed can endanger bystanders.

Many other states leave pursuit decisions largely to officer discretion, with only broad departmental guidelines in place. Officers in these jurisdictions may initiate a pursuit for felonies, serious traffic violations, or even property crimes, provided they weigh the risk factors. Texas, for example, generally gives law enforcement broader flexibility to pursue, though individual departments still impose their own internal limits.

The trend is not one-way. Several jurisdictions that adopted restrictive policies in 2020 and 2021 have since rolled them back, citing concerns that suspects increasingly flee because they believe officers won’t follow. There is no national consensus on where the line should be drawn.

What Officers Must Weigh Before and During a Chase

Even the most permissive departments do not give officers a blank check. Every credible pursuit policy requires some assessment of risk. The factors officers are expected to weigh include:

The severity of the offense. A violent felony or an immediate danger to life justifies more pursuit risk than a property crime or traffic violation.
Road and weather conditions. Wet roads, heavy traffic, school zones, and residential neighborhoods increase danger to bystanders.
The suspect’s driving behavior. A suspect running red lights poses far more risk than one maintaining speed on a highway.
Vehicle type. Many agencies prohibit chasing motorcycles altogether because of the extreme injury risk to the rider.
Availability of alternatives. If a helicopter, drone, or GPS tracking device can take over, the ground chase becomes less necessary.
Whether the suspect is identified. If officers already know who the suspect is, the DOJ recommends letting them go and making an arrest later.

Supervisors play a central role. Most modern policies require an officer to get supervisor authorization before initiating a chase, and supervisors are expected to independently assess whether the pursuit should continue.³ The DOJ also instructs supervisors to terminate a pursuit if the pursuing officer appears unable to control their emotions, if visual contact with the suspect is lost, if air or GPS tracking takes over, or if the police vehicle becomes damaged.

Suing After a Pursuit Goes Wrong

People injured or killed during police pursuits sometimes have legal recourse, but the bar is deliberately high. Two Supreme Court decisions define the landscape.

County of Sacramento v. Lewis

In County of Sacramento v. Lewis (1998), the Supreme Court held that a police officer does not violate a person’s due-process rights by causing death during a high-speed chase unless the officer’s conduct “shocks the conscience.”⁹ Ordinary negligence, or even reckless indifference, is not enough. Only a deliberate intent to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate goal of apprehension crosses the constitutional line. Most pursuit-related injuries do not give rise to a federal civil rights claim under this standard.

Scott v. Harris

In Scott v. Harris (2007), the Court addressed whether an officer violated the Fourth Amendment by ramming a fleeing suspect’s car off the road, causing severe injuries. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prevent officers from using this kind of force to end a dangerous high-speed chase, even when it risks serious harm to the suspect.¹⁰ The threat the fleeing suspect posed to everyone else on the road was the deciding factor.

Section 1983 and Qualified Immunity

Injured parties can sue officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating their constitutional rights, but officers are generally shielded by qualified immunity unless they violated a “clearly established” right.¹¹ In practice, a plaintiff must point to a prior decision with nearly identical facts that already declared the same conduct unconstitutional. Combined with the “shocks the conscience” standard from Lewis, successful pursuit-related Section 1983 claims are rare.

State-level tort claims are sometimes a more viable path. Municipalities generally don’t enjoy the same sovereign immunity as state and federal governments, and some states allow lawsuits against cities for negligent pursuit decisions or for failing to train officers in pursuit safety. Whether a department can be held liable depends heavily on that state’s tort claims act and how courts distinguish between discretionary decisions, which are usually immune, and operational negligence, which usually is not.¹² Georgia’s statute goes further than most, protecting the officer from being treated as the proximate cause of harm absent reckless disregard for proper procedure.

Why National Comparison Is Hard

One reason pursuit policy is so difficult to evaluate across states is that most of them don’t require agencies to report pursuit data. Minnesota’s mandatory 30-day reporting rule is the exception, not the rule.⁶ Without consistent data, it is nearly impossible to compare how different policies affect bystander injuries, successful apprehensions, or suspect deaths.

Washington has moved toward broader use-of-force reporting, launching a statewide database that requires agencies to report incidents monthly, including any use of a vehicle as force. California also collects pursuit data through the CHP. In most of the country, though, whether an agency even tracks its own pursuit outcomes is a matter of internal policy, and the data that does exist is often not public. If you want to know the pursuit rules that apply where you live, the most reliable path is to request the written pursuit policy directly from the specific agency, because the statute, if there is one, is usually only part of the picture.

1
Illinois State Police. OPS-003, Vehicle Pursuits and Forcible Vehicle Stops
2
Ohio Attorney General. The Ohio Attorney General’s Advisory Group on Law Enforcement Vehicular Pursuits
3
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Vehicular Pursuits: A Guide for Law Enforcement Executives on Managing the Associated Risks
4
Washington State House Republicans. I-2113: Restoring Police Pursuits
5
sf.gov. National Vehicle Pursuit Policy Best Practices
6
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 626.5532 – Pursuit of Fleeing Suspects by Peace Officers
7
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Administrative Code LES 3.07 – Law Enforcement Pursuit Standards and Related Training
8
State of Michigan. State Police Amends Policy to Restrict Pursuits
9
Justia. County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 (1998)
10
Justia. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007)
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights
12
Legal Information Institute. Sovereign Immunity