A lot of this follows a number of chases in southern California that resulted in horrendous collisions. One a few years ago, occurred in front of a high school and killed some kids on the way to school. Pursuit in deserted desert areas should not be affected by rules on pursuit in populated communities but that’s the way bureaucracies work.

Under an agreement between President Bush and the former President Vicente Fox, please notify your citizens of these policies that will be strictly imposed:

In the event that your citizens have been spotted by our Border Patrol, and your citizens happen to be on foot, please advise them to run as our Border Patrol are not allowed to chase them.

Should your citizens be attempting to bring drugs, weapons, WMDs or any other product into the United States by vehicle, please advise them to speed as our Border Patrol cannot exceed the speed limit without supervisory permission which ususally takes a minute or two while we determine certain factors like weather, road conditions, visability due to the dust their vehicle will be throwing up due to the Mexican citizen’s excessive speed.

Your citizens may not even notice the presence of our Border Patrol because they have been advised that if they spot your citizens, they are to stay out of sight in order to avoid any confrontation.

If there is anything else we can do in order to facilitate the exodus of another 10% of your population that you do not want to assume reponsibility from, please advise. We are here to appease please.

Sincerely,

Department of Homeland Security per G.W. Bush

Fascinating, and unfortunate.

Very bad criminals tend to run away from police. The guy who is just trying to cross illegally might run; the dude with six kilos of meth will run.

Weather, road conditions and location, huh?

Border Patrol Officer: We’ve got two armed people driving away from us with two kidnapped juveniles in the back of their pickup truck.

Supervisor: OK, I’m checking the weather. What are the road conditions?

BPO: Clear, except for the people who are now driving at 90 miles per hour away from us. We are stopped.

Supervisor: So the kidnappers have guns?

BPO: Well, they did when they left 60 second ago. They’re now a mile away.

Supervisor: OK, go chase them!

BPO: Yeah. They’re gone.

–JRM

The border patrol operates under a single pursuit policy, said Andrea Zortman, a border patrol spokeswoman. “Each pursuit is different,” she said. “A case involving a marijuana load is going to be different than pursuing a human trafficker.”

A number of factors are assessed by a local supervisor, including weather, road conditions, and location “and then it falls on the supervisor to determine if [pursuit] is okay,” Zortman said. “We have to be aware of the safety for everyone, our agents, those we are pursuing and anyone nearby.”

It sounds to me like most pursuits - and perhaps all of them - must be “assessed by a local supervisor” and approved before the agents may pursue a suspect.

This is for you:

Some agents complained that they are rarely allowed to pursue illegal immigrants, regardless of the situation. “If anyone runs from us, we don’t chase them,” said one California-based border patrol agent who requested anonymity. “We could have information that there is a nuke in the back of a van but we don’t have authority to chase them,” the agent said. “We’ve had radiation pagers go off and we’re still not allowed [by our supervisors] to give chase,” he said. “They are scared to death something will go wrong and there will be a huge liability.”

Patterico,

This article doesn’t involve testimony under oath but it is sourced so you might find it interesting.

If the BP is hiring people incapable of judging how fast to drive, why are they given guns in the first place?