When should police pursue?: Today So Far

• Redmond and Portland are the first Northwest cities to get electric firetrucks.
• Washington lawmakers are weighing the differences between "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause" as they consider changing police pursuit rules.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for February 17, 2023.

"Electric firetruck" might sound like a Tom Wolfe book, or an album by a 1960s psychedelic prog rock bank, but it's actually the latest innovation being embraced by Northwest fire departments.

Redmond and Portland have placed orders for one electric firetruck each. Redmond's council approved $2.3 million to buy the vehicle this month. That money also covers new charging equipment to operate it. This costs a lot more than the average firetruck, but the city is using a $600,000 grant from the state, plus donations from private companies to lessen the financial burn.

It will take a couple years before Wisconsin-based Pierce Manufacturing will have the electric firetruck ready for delivery to Redmond. The Volterra, which is not an '80s glam band (I checked), is the electric truck model the fire departments have ordered. It uses electricity for everything from driving to pumping water, but it has a diesel motor to power things up should the batteries be depleted. Tom Banse has the full story here.

Just in case, if there are any local bands out there crafting a psychedelic sound, feel free to use "Electric Firetruck" for anything. Just leaving that there for you.

What's the difference between "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause?" That's not a trick question. It's an important distinction that lawmakers at the Capitol in Olympia are weighing right now.

A bill aimed at changing Washington police pursuit rules just passed out of a House committee this week. The bill would alter a rule that passed in 2021 as part of a few police accountability upgrades. Since then, police have been required to have probable cause to chase a car. Also since then, police have reported that many drivers are not stopping for them. One driver even called 911 to have dispatchers tell the officer following him that he was not pulling over and cited the new law preventing police pursuits as his argument.

The change currently being proposed would lower the bar for police pursuits from probable cause to reasonable suspicion.

Remember how Thomas Magnum of "Magnum PI" fame investigated cases? You're all deeply familiar with the greatest detective of the 1980s, right? Sure you are. Any way, Magnum would always say he had this "little voice" in his head that indicated when something was up. This was basically a hunch. There's no evidence. There's nothing else to indicate anything bad is going on. It's a gut feeling. Despite what TV cop shows tell you, police can't do anything with a hunch.

The next level up is reasonable suspicion (which is what the bill proposes to implement). This does not require evidence of a crime. Rather, a cop just has to reasonably feel that something is up, and can then further investigate. They can detain you, but they can't arrest you. When California Highway Patrol Officer Francis "Ponch" Poncherello is on his police motorcycle and notices a car swerving all over the road, he could have reasonable suspicion that the driver is impaired. So he may try to pull the car over to further investigate. But Ponch doesn't know if a crime (drunk driving) is happening. He would have to get a breath test to indicate the driver's blood-alcohol level is above the legal limit — that's actual evidence, and therefore probable cause, which is the next level up.

Police need probable cause to make an arrest. When Inspector Harry Callahan is eating a hot dog from across the street of a bank, and notices a car lingering with its engine running, he might have reasonable suspicion that something bad is happening (honestly, he might not even have that). He can't really do much, legally. But when the bank's alarm goes off and a man exits with a big bag of cash, shooting a shotgun into the air, while running to his getaway car, then the inspector definitely has probable cause that a crime has been committed.

It should probably be noted that as cool as Dirty Harry is, this is not an example of a police officer that folks should be following.

That's where Washington's pursuit rules are set now — an officer has to know a crime happened (probable cause) to chase a car. The bill in Olympia aims to lower that to reasonable suspicion. A big argument around this issue is that, while suspects could be dangerous, police pursuits are also dangerous and cause harm. Both sides of this issue seem to have their own data to support their stance. Lawmakers are divided on this issue, and not just by the usual, boring and predictable Republicans versus Democrats dynamic. Democrats largely run the show at the Capitol, and some seem favorable to the change, while others want rules to remain tight. And others just want the bill to run its course through the Legislature.

Gov. Jay Inslee has indicated that he is open to loosening things up, recently commenting that "we've learned some things" since the new rules passed. But he added that a bill would have to pass for him to even sign it. KUOW's Amy Radil has the full story on this here.

The Friday Five: News you may have missed this week, and other cool stuff

• Mike's adventures in art: 'A Long Walk to Hope'
• Tanya Woo announces campaign for Seattle Council District 2
• Biden: 3 aerial objects were 'most likely' tied to private companies or research
• WA legislators weigh mandating nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals
• Washington state starts capping climate pollution from its biggest sources

AS SEEN ON KUOW

Two plays showing in Seattle right now deal with the issues of race, social justice and "right to just be." “This Bitter Earth” is playing at Seattle Public Theatre, and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” is at the Erickson Theatre. (Mike Davis / KUOW)

DID YOU KNOW?

The Los Angeles Fire Department was the first such department in the United States to start using an electric fire truck. LAFD paid $1.2 million for a truck built by Austrian-based Rosenbauer. It was delivered and assigned to Hollywood Fire Station 82 last year. This is believed to be the first electric fire truck to be used in North America, and the third in the world.

The fire truck slated for Redmond looks and feels more like the fire trucks in use today. Aside from the noise (or lack thereof), you wouldn't tell the difference. The Rosenbauer model, however, definitely has a futuristic look, with aesthetics akin to a Robocop movie. Rosenbauer's electric fire truck has a 350kW powertrain, and a 100kWh battery, which is rated to last for two hours of operation.

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Is the economy headed for recession or a soft landing?

A recession is when the economy gets smaller. Normally, when that's happening, you feel it, people get laid off, businesses shut down and everything starts going on super sale. But right now, nothing is really going according to plan. The data we're getting seem to be telling some very different stories.

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