Lethal weapon; when thousands die in high-speed police chases, who do we really need protecting from?

• Author: Shumate, Richard

It was Saturday night in a suburb of Los Angeles, and 19-year-old Doug Gray found himself with serious time on his hands. He had taken his date to the drive-in, but there was a lengthy wait until the movie began. So he did what many a doltish 19-year-old has done to impress a girl. He began doing doughnuts with his car.

Before long, a passing LAPD squad car spied Gray's vehicular gymnastics and turned into the drive-in to stop him. Panicked, Gray took off. And so did the LAPD. Neglecting to turn on their lights and siren, the officers followed Gray out of the lot and onto the crowded streets, caroming after the teenager.

Like Gray, 36-year-old Susan Tartakoff also planned to spend her Saturday night with a movie. She had picked up a few of her husband's favorites at the local video store and begun the short drive back home. She wouldn't get there for five months.

As Tartakoff proceeded through an intersection, Gray rammed into her at 90 miles per hour. Today, Tartakoff spends most of her time in rehab-"practicing standing, crawling, and other things," she says. She's paralyzed from the waist down.

This March, Americans were outraged to see the videotape of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King-an episode that began with a simple speeding violation. King was permanently injured, and four officers now face the possibility of lengthy prison sentences. The Tartakoff and King cases, six years apart, may seem at first to have nothing in common. But only at first. Rodney King and Susan Tartakoff are both casualties of a time-honored police tradition: the high-speed chase.

According to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), two of every five high-speed police chases in the U.S. end in property damage. One in four ends in injury. And far, far too many end in death: An average of 287 people died as a result of police pursuit every year during the eighties. Mind you, most of the bad guys being pursued aren't rapacious, gun-toting thugs. The vast majority of high-speed chases begin with a minor traffic violation and escalate into emotion-filled, fuel-injected duels.

To the officers chasing two Augusta, Georgia, teenagers down country roads last year, it didn't seem to matter that the kids' crime was swiping $9.21 worth of gas. They had to be caught and punished-or killed, which is what happened first. Of course, those teenagers did break the law. The 68year-old Augusta man who was hit and killed after a high-speed pursuit the same weekend didn't. He was just standing on the comer.

Standing on the corner-that's exactly what pregnant Regina Morton was doing when she got hit and thrown by a car being chased across Chicago's South Side. Her 54-year-old neighbor Hugh Santee, on the other hand, was a more challenging target: He was trying to cross the street. Santee died after being hit twice, first by a speeding Cadillac and then by the Chicago police. Washington's6- Reginald Baker was also taking a stroll when a stolen Nissan Pathfinder plowed into him last month, D.C. police cars fast behind him. The Nissan kept going, the police kept chasing...