Code 3 rules face scrutiny

Much is at stake in such policy reviews, including the safety of officers and the public. More officers died in on-duty crashes last year in the United States than were shot to death.

The department will be looking into an issue that has been widely debated in departments across the country: Is it better to give officers more leeway to use their lights and sirens, known as "rolling code," or further restrict their use?

Officers face a Catch-22, some say, in which the public holds them accountable for quick response times, yet their hands may be tied in terms of how fast they’re allowed to respond.

"If somebody’s breaking into a house, it’s private property and technically you’re not supposed to roll code," said Detective Chris Collins, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union that represents the roughly 2,500 officers in the department. "But if it’s your home, you want me to get there and save your property."

To do so, officers sometimes will do things such as drive a little faster or cut through shopping centers to avoid intersections, all without using lights and sirens, Collins said.

This wasn’t a dilemma that Manor faced, according to the sheriff, who said the officer was allowed to use his lights and siren as he responded to a 14-year-old girl’s call that she was being beaten by her stepfather.

But Manor, for whatever reason, didn’t use his lights or siren, and he died after striking a pickup that turned in front of him. The driver of the pickup, Calvin Darling, said he saw the two police cars but thought he had enough time to make a left turn in front of them.

Gillespie, Collins and others in the department agree that Manor’s speed just before his death — 109 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone — was excessive, even if his lights and siren had been on.

The sheriff said he is assembling a panel of people on his executive staff to look at the department’s driving policies and training and possibly change them.

Collins said a broader policy on when to roll code is needed.

"These young guys, these young officers like officer Manor, they love their job," Collins said. "It sounds silly, but they really do want to protect the 14-year-old girl or the 85-year-old woman, and sometimes you have to drive fast to do it."

Across the country, policies vary when it comes to allowing patrol cars to respond with lights and sirens, said Tulsa, Okla., police Capt. Travis Yates, an emergency driving instructor and owner of the policedriving.com Web site.

Some police agencies have strict policies that dictate specific situations or types of calls where officers are allowed or required to respond with lights and sirens, known as Code 3.

At the other end of the spectrum are policies that give officers wide latitude in deciding when to flip on their lights and sirens, he said.

The Metropolitan and North Las Vegas police departments have policies that allow Code 3 responses to a number of broadly defined situations.

Las Vegas police, for example, can use Code 3 for felonies in progress, pursuits, volatile situations and incidents where a person’s life is in danger.

The North Las Vegas police policy includes allowing lights and sirens for violent crimes and calls where safety, property or evidence is in jeopardy.

The Henderson police policy is even broader, allowing Code 3 driving during "emergency or exceptional circumstances," giving officers discretion to decide which calls fit that definition.

Officers are supposed to obey all traffic laws if they’re not rolling Code 3.

Yates said no particular policy is right or wrong. Many policies are too vague, giving officers little guidance on when to use their lights and sirens.

Others are too restrictive, tying the hands of officers who are doing their jobs, he said. In those agencies, officers wanting to get to a scene quickly but wary of violating policy might respond "Code 21/2," which means driving like Code 3 but with no emergency lights and sirens.

That practice by Los Angeles police officers led to some of the department’s worst officer-involved crashes in recent years, prompting the department to loosen its policy last month.

The previous policy allowed only one police vehicle to respond Code 3 per emergency call. The new policy lets multiple officers respond Code 3, and it widens the definition of emergency calls, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Gillespie said he doesn’t know if he will change the department’s policies, but they have been changed before, he said. When he joined the department in the 1970s, the Code 3 policy was stricter, only allowing lights and sirens for specific calls.

Collins said the policy should be broadened to leave the decision of rolling code up to the officer. "The more restrictive you make it, the more often you’re going to have officers involved in these types of accidents," he said.

The key to any driving policy is the training departments give their officers. Some agencies compensate for a lack of emergency driving training by creating restrictive policies, Yates said.

Good policies give officers discretion to decide when to respond with lights and sirens, but those policies must be backed up by regular driving training, he said.

Most police agencies provide firearms training several times a year, but far fewer provide any driving training after the police academy. And they should, he said, because driving a speeding patrol car under stressful, dangerous conditions is a skill that deteriorates without regular practice.

"Most officers never fire their guns in the course of duty. They drive their cars every day," Yates said.

After undergoing 40 hours of automobile training in the academy, Las Vegas police officers have to undergo additional training every two or three years, depending on whether they’re assigned to patrol duty or not, spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said.

The training includes how to drive the cars and when and how to drive Code 3, she said.

Collins also favors allowing a Code 2, where officers can run their lights but not their sirens.

Although it’s against policy, officers will sometimes do that in residential areas.

When he worked in SWAT and had to respond to calls from his home at all hours of the night, Collins said he would leave his lights on but wouldn’t turn his siren on until he got onto the freeway.

"I knew I was technically in violation of policy, but I also didn’t want my neighbors pissed off at me every day," Collins said. "I have to live there, you know?"

He said that’s the only reason he can think of that Manor might not have turned his lights and siren on the night he died — that Manor might have been thinking of the homes on both sides of him on Flamingo Road.

Contact Lawrence Mower at lmower @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.