SHB 1363 would allow officers to pursue if there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a person in the vehicle has committed a violent crime or a sex crime, or if the driver is intoxicated

Brett Davis
The Center Square Washington

A bipartisan bill that would allow police more discretion when it comes to vehicular pursuits appears to be gaining some momentum in the Washington State Legislature.

Substitute House Bill 1363, which passed out of the House Transportation Committee on Feb. 23, would allow officers to pursue if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person in the vehicle has committed a violent crime or a sex crime, or if the driver is intoxicated.

Police pursuits have been in the spotlight this session in the aftermath of passing House Bill 1054, which upped the threshold to probable cause from reasonable suspicion.

Since HB 1054 went into effect nearly two years ago, there has been a marked increase in auto thefts and drivers refusing to stop for police.

“If the House sends it over here, all I can – Sen. [Majority Leader Andy] Billig has promised it will get a committee hearing in Law & Justice,” Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, said Wednesday. “So, I think people in the House who don’t want to vote on the bill are spreading, you know, a falsehood that it’s not going to get a hearing in the Senate. That is not true.”

The Center Square reached out to Billig for comment but did not receive a response.

Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee and deputy majority leader of the Senate, has refused to hear proposed changes to the pursuit law so far.

When asked about that, Mullet responded, “We have a lot of folks in our caucus that realize, like, the status quo is unacceptable.”

During a sit-down interview from his Capitol Campus office in Olympia, the senator spoke more about police pursuit reform legislation gaining some momentum.

“We ended up not even moving the study bill out of the Senate, because I just don’t think the study bill is doing anything, and I wanted our colleagues to realize like we need to fix this thing this session,” Mullet said.

That was a reference to Senate Bill 5533 that would keep the current police pursuit restrictions in place and give the Criminal Justice Training Commission until the end of October 2024 to study the issue and propose model legislation.

The Senate Law & Justice Committee advanced SB 5533 in early February. An executive session on the bill before the Senate Ways & Means Committee was scheduled for Feb. 24 but no action was taken. 

“I think you have to walk out of session with a message that you can’t drive away from the police without repercussions,” Mullet said.

He pointed out there wasn’t a uniform pursuit policy before HB 1054 went into effect, with some local jurisdictions having more stringent requirements than the state for engaging in vehicular pursuits.

“But before when those jurisdictions limited pursuits it wasn’t front-page news,” Mullet explained. “Nobody knew they were doing it. And nobody was driving away because they had no clue what the internal policy was of like that individual police department.”

He concluded, “The problem now is the bill passed and everyone found out.”