A police chase injured a Pinellas woman. Why wasn’t that disclosed? - Tampa Bay Times

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A 20-year-old Palm Harbor woman says she was injured Sunday after crashing into a speeding Tarpon Springs police vehicle that ran a red light while chasing after armed robbery suspects.

Paige Hutsenpiller and her family are also upset that the three law enforcement agencies that took part in the chase failed to disclose to the public that a civilian ended up in the emergency room when a speeding police vehicle entered her right of way.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve experienced, that’s for sure,” said Hutsenpiller, who says she suffered contusions to her neck and back.

The chase started after an armed robbery in Tarpon Springs, authorities say, and ended 60 miles away in Lakeland. The Tarpon Springs Police Department was the first to inform the media and public about Sunday’s incident and acknowledged the crash — but only said the officer wasn’t injured. The Florida Highway Patrol announced two men were captured on Interstate 4 and the officer-involved crash, but didn’t mention that a civilian was involved. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the Palm Harbor crash but has made no public announcements about the incident.

Hutsenpiller’s family saw news coverage of the chase Sunday and Monday and emailed the Tampa Bay Times to complain that there was no mention that the police pursuit left the 20-year-old injured and her car totaled.

“(The officer) went flying through there, nonstop through a red light ...,” said grandfather Jerry Dechen, 79. “Seconds earlier, there would’ve been a body bag there.”

Related: St. Petersburg police officer shot, child abuse suspect killed in confrontation

• • •

The incident started about 7:50 a.m. Sunday when an unnamed woman reported being robbed by two men, according to Tarpon Springs police. She said they followed her from her workplace in Tampa to her Tarpon Springs home, then robbed her at gunpoint and drove off. A Tarpon Springs officer spotted the fleeing vehicle and started a pursuit.

At about the same time, Hutsenpiller said she was heading to work at the Target off McMullen Booth Road in Palm Harbor. Driving north on East Lake Road S toward the store, she stopped at the red light at Tampa Road. Meanwhile, the fleeing vehicle was headed east on Tampa Road and approaching the intersection.

When the light turned green, Hutsenpiller said, traffic pulled forward, and she did the same. She said she didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, such as a siren. But she was adjacent to two lefthand turn lanes, and those vehicles partially blocked her view of Tampa Road.

Those in front of her made it safely through the intersection. She was about halfway through when she said she saw the police car drive through the red light and right at her. She braced for impact. The police car passed in front of her just before they collided. Her SUV slammed into its passenger side.

A 20-year-old Pinellas woman's car was totaled when she collided with a Tarpon Springs police officer who drove through a red light while chasing robbery suspects, the woman's family said. She suffered injuries to her back, neck, chest and knee. [ Courtesy of Elizabeth Dechen ]

The vehicles spun to a stop. She was in shock. Her airbag deployed and she was also wearing her seatbelt. She remembered bystanders and a Pinellas sheriff’s deputy helping her out of the car, first-responders checking her blood pressure and heart rate, and her mom arriving to take her to a hospital (she declined to use an ambulance).

Hutsenpiller said a deputy told her the crash wasn’t her fault.

“Yes, he was chasing an armed robber, and his speed was really fast,” she remembered the deputy saying. “But he could’ve slowed down, at least, to see if anyone was coming.”

Pinellas sheriff’s deputies continued the pursuit, which authorities said ended in Polk County when a Florida Highway Patrol trooper forced the fleeing car to stop on I-4. Two Orlando men, Travon Sullivan, 20, and Ralph Peeples, 19, were arrested. A woman in the car was detained but later released.

The Times asked the Tarpon Springs Police Department why it announced that its officer wasn’t injured in the Palm Harbor crash, but didn’t mention that a civilian was involved. Sgt. Robert Faugno said the crash is under the purview of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, not the police department.

“It didn’t happen in the city of Tarpon Springs,” he said. “It happened in the county. It’s not a big deal. Next question, please.”

A sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency is investigating the crash. When asked why the agency didn’t make a public announcement about the crash, the spokesperson noted the civilian’s injuries weren’t “serious/life threatening.”

Hutsenpiller believes the agencies had their own reasons for not disclosing that she was injured.

“I think, honestly, they were just trying to save their backs,” she said.

• • •

Tarpon Springs police will conduct an internal investigation of the officer’s actions on Sunday, Faugno said, to see if he violated department policy. The agency has not released the officer’s name.

But Faugno said the officer followed department policy for initiating pursuits, which allows officers to chase those suspected of forcible felonies, a broad category of crimes that includes armed robbery, murder, sexual battery and kidnapping. The decision to start a pursuit is up to the individual officer, according to the department’s policy, but they should consider the danger such a pursuit poses to the public.

“Terminating a pursuit for safety reasons shall be considered a decision made in the interest of public safety,” the policy says. “Many times the termination of a pursuit is the safest and most appropriate action to take.”

Faugno said the officer had activated his vehicle’s lights and sirens during the pursuit.

A supervisor was monitoring the officer’s pursuit, Faugno said, in compliance with agency policy. The sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency’s helicopter, which often helps with pursuits, did not help with Sunday’s incident.

Faugno said he doesn’t yet know how fast the officer was going. But when the pursuit reached the interstate, it hit speeds of up to 120 mph, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The aftermath of the high-speed pursuit that started in Tarpon Springs. A Florida Highway Patrol cruiser forced a vehicle driven by robbery suspects off of Interstate 4 in Polk County. But a Pinellas woman said she was injured early on during the chase when a Tarpon Springs police officer drove his vehicle through a red light and into her path, causing her to crash. [ Florida Highway Patrol ]

The decision to chase after a suspect vehicle at high-speeds is one of the riskiest a law enforcement officer can make, for themselves and the public. Agencies have changed their policies after some chases have resulted in injury and death. In 2014, after an uptick in car chases early in the decade, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office tightened its rules so that deputies could only pursue suspects in certain forcible felonies who were also driving recklessly or posed an immediate threat to the public; that meant deputies could no longer chase stolen cars.

Earlier this year, a Pinellas deputy was suspended for a day after breaking policy in a high-speed chase on Gulf Boulevard. In 2018, two Clearwater Police Department officers and a detective were suspended after an unauthorized chase led to a crash that injured two civilians and one of the officers. In that case, the officer drove through a red light and collided with a car driven by a 20-year-old woman, who was hospitalized with injuries. The same year, bad chases resulted in suspensions for a Pinellas deputy and a lieutenant.

Hutsenpiller, a St. Petersburg College student, said this week that her pain is still “probably a nine” on a scale of one to 10. She needs to see more doctors to get a longterm prognosis. She believes the officer is at fault and that the police department should pay to replace her car. She has also retained an attorney.

“I’m actually really scared to get back in a car,” she said. “I’m still kind of shaken up about the whole thing. It’s kind of unreal to me that I was in an accident with a police officer at that kind of speed.”

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A police chase injured a Pinellas woman. Why wasn’t that disclosed? - Tampa Bay Times
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