SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- ABC 57 has been covering the police chase that resulted in a flipped-over South Bend police vehicle.
According to South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, that officer is ok and is now back on duty. Ruszkowski says in these situations, as long as there wasn’t something “egregious,” the officer can go back to work once they are medically cleared.
The police chief says after a pursuit, there’s a whole review process–including review by a pursuit review committee. He says the review of a pursuit can sometimes take a couple weeks.
During pursuits, the chief says officers involved have a whole different real-time perspective, weighing several factors when deciding whether to keep it going.
"Road conditions, pedestrians, vehicles, officers' capability, vehicle capability, suspect vehicle capability, suspect driving behavior. All those things are factors that are included and you have to weigh those options within a second and a half each time, each turn, each whatever," Said Ruszkowski. “It’s not just the risk factors, it’s ‘does the danger to the public outweigh the reason for that pursuit’. And that is a very very thin line right there. Like I said he has a known past with us, and its a violent past with us.”
In terms of the rollover, he says there could be a few factors for why this happened, but based on the initial review of the footage, he says the rollover was caused by gravity–impacting the tree at about 14 miles per hour.