Now that approval has been given for the Indianapolis Police Department and Marion County Sheriff's Department to merge, their policies have to be reconciled, such as the two departments' differing policies on pursuit. I think the Star editorial makes a decent case for tightening the policies, which police seem reluctant to do:
An analysis by The Star last year of 947 police pursuits in Indiana found that only 3 percent resulted in charges for violent felonies and nearly one in five resulted in injury. Between 1993 and 2003, 86 people in Indiana and 3,877 nationally were killed by police pursuits; nearly one-third were innocent third parties.
But the larger issue is the one of reconciling policies. It has hardly been talked about here, but that issue will become of great importance should Fort Wayne and Allen County merge -- we would have one political entity with two sets of ordinances, which would have to be combined in some way. The one I thought of right away was smoking in public places, which Fort Wayne has a policy on and Allen County does not, but there would be plenty of similar issues.
