OSAGE BEACH, MO (KMIZ)

An Osage Beach police officer who died in a car crash over the weekend became the 32nd officer in the U.S. to die in a car crash on the job this year, a 45 percent increase from the same time last year.

Phylicia Carson was killed in a crash on Route A near Richland during a weekend pursuit of a speeding suspect. The suspect, 23-year-old Christopher Wehmeyer, faces aggravated battery for fleeing Carson and other Osage Beach police officers who tried to pull him over for speeding. Funeral services will be held Thursday at the Lodge of Four Seasons in Osage Beach. Carson is the third Missouri police officer to die in a car chase in the past decade.

ABC 17 News analyzed 32 U.S. law enforcement deaths for the Officer Down Memorial Page. The review found that eight of those deaths occurred during a car chase. Of those deaths:

• Four of them allegedly occurred when a fleeing suspect hit a police officer.
• Two of the crashes allegedly occurred when officers drove off the road themselves, including Carson.
• One happened when another officer chasing them hit them
• One of them happened when an unauthorized car hit a state trooper.

According to ODMP data, 22 people died in accidents in 2023.

The review found that 12 law enforcement officers died when another car hit them while working on the side of the road or as part of a traffic patrol. Another nine died in crashes during routine traffic. Three officers died when they crashed while responding to another call.

“Generally speaking, we hope we don’t fall into any of them,” said Seth Fallick, chairman of the Department of Forensics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “The reason is that they are quite risky, and we want law enforcement to avoid risk.”

High-speed police pursuits are not only dangerous for officers. They also put nearby vehicles at risk. Figures from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) estimate that 52,600 people were injured in police pursuits between 2017 and 2021. At least fifteen of these were officers.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked PERF to conduct a study on risk management in car chases. The study, released last September, recommended that police should only engage in a car chase if: “(1) a violent crime has been committed, and (2) the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.”

“If they’re not going to commit a crime or pose a threat, I think we just let them go and catch up with them later,” Fallick said when asked about the study. “We have to remember that vehicles, especially in adverse weather and, you know, variable daylight, can help or hinder our vision.”

The state recently passed its own potential solution, called Valentine’s Law, named for Detective Antonio Valentine, who was killed in 2021 after a suspect fleeing his narcotics unit collided head-on with his vehicle. The law increases punishment for suspects who flee an officer before committing a felony. Whether it will reduce the number of fatal crashes remains to be seen.

“We know that a lot of people don’t calculate their decisions based on punishment, so it certainly hits them in the aftermath, but they’re not thinking about it in the moment,” Fallick explained. “They’re getting their adrenaline pumping and they’re trying to get away from what they perceive as police presence or police aggression. They’re not saying, well, I used to only get nine months, and now I’m eligible for two years. That’s not part of their decision at all. And I’d have to look into the law.”

Other solutions include drones or helicopters that police officers follow at a distance, Fallik said. This is especially useful in cities, where the risk of injury to officers or bystanders is much higher.