It’s a hotly contested topic in western Washington. Legislation has recently been introduced to relax police pursuit laws. Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe said the department introduced new GPS monitoring technology to help with this kind of de-escalation. “Just the latest iteration in tools and technology to improve the profession of law enforcement,” said Lowe. Vehicles have been retrofitted with StarChase technology and officers have been trained. StarChase allows officers to shoot a tracker onto a suspect vehicle and monitor where it goes. The company says it has a 95% success rate. “It allows us to tag a vehicle, back off and allows us dispatch to monitor the vehicle virtually,” said Lowe. Once the vehicle stops, officers can make an arrest. StarChase is currently in 34 states and multiple agencies already use it in Washington. The grant funded pilot program goes through September. “We have used it several times and have been successful in the deployment of StarChase and apprehension of suspects,” said Lowe. Since the pilot began in January, the department has arrested several people. “It’s really one of the most common crimes that we prosecute,” said Casey McNerthney who is the Spokesperson for the King County Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutor's office rush filed charges in one of those cases. “It’s reassuring to see Redmond be proactive here to try to get us additional cases to try and hold people accountable,” said McNerthney. Once the pilot program is finished, the data will go to the state legislature and the Governor’s office with recommendations. READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.king5.com/article/tech/redmond-police-pilot-program-using-gps-technology-police-pursuits/281-4ea8e6c9-0889-48f2-8c3e-9f2b230c6d31