When suspects flee

Law enforcement has to weigh whether the chase is legal

NEWPORT – Wednesday morning, April 23, Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s deputies got a call of a burglary in progress and an assault. Law enforcement responded, chased and caught one of two suspects and recovered a gun safe with five rifles. A deputy was injured in the process.

“The reason we responded to the area is that we got a call of a burglary in progress with a suspect still at the scene and a felony assault,” Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee told county commissioners the following Monday during his regular update. “We got there, found the vehicle leaving the scene and got into a pursuit.”

According to the court documents, speeds reached 7680 mph.

“They went out onto the state highways, then ended up turning onto secondary roads and then dirt roads,” he said. “We go from a burglary in progress, to a felony assault, to now a pursuit with multiple law enforcement officers involved.”

The chase continued, with the suspect vehicle turning onto back country roads, crashing through two metal gates and then becoming stuck. The two suspects, a male driver and female passenger, got out of the vehicle and fled.

“We ended up in a foot pursuit,” Blakeslee said. “That’s when the deputy got injured as he actually chased down one of the suspects and during that they took a big tumble and he ended up cutting his arm pretty good and required stitches.”

The female suspect did not require stitches but was also pretty banged up, he said. The male suspect escaped. The deputy returned to work that afternoon, Blakeslee said.

Law enforcement has to have a justifiable reason to be pursuing somebody. Law enforcement believed they had that reason because of a burglary and felony assault, Blakeslee said.

But as they investigated further the victims wavered on pursuing charges. They said it happened, but the male victim didn’t want to cooperate in the assault investigation.

“Which puts us in a huge liability situation because why are we pursuing somebody if we no longer have charges,” he said. “Ultimately the victim of the assault decided they did not want to participate, but the victims of the burglary did.”

That helped law enforcement justify their role in the pursuit and the damaged property, as well as the injury to the deputy.

Blakeslee said there had been changes to the pursuit laws in the last few years. The state legislature had eliminated police pursuits under most circumstances in 2021. An initiative was passed by voters and signed into law in 2024 allowing police to pursue under reasonable suspicion a crime had been committed, as opposed to needing probable cause, a much higher standard.

“They basically, for all intents and purposes, they took pursuits away from us,” Blakeslee told The Miner. “But then the people of the state did a people’s initiative and they said ‘that we want the cops to be able to pursue.’” When pursuits were prohibited, more people ran from law enforcement.

“We even saw it here,” he said. He gave the example of a deputy who made a traffic stop and issued a ticket. “The individual was not happy with the result and said, ‘If I knew you were going to give me a ticket, I’d have just run.’” For some people, running from law enforcement became more of an option.

“The thought is there that ‘I don’t want to get in trouble and you can’t chase me,’” Blakeslee said. The initiative and change to state law made it easier to pursue, but law enforcement still needed a valid reason to chase.

“It’s still not as free as it used to be, which is what concerned me about the pursuit where the deputy got injured,” he said. Law enforcement had to have legal justification for the pursuit. When they were chasing an assault suspect, as well as burglary suspects, the pursuit was more justifiable.

If they were pursuing only because of a burglary, that fell into a gray area because burglary is a property crime, he said. The assault, on the other hand, was a violent crime. Still the pursuit was justified under current law, he said.

“We’re protected by what we know at the time we are responding,” he said. “If we’re in the act of a pursuit and we say there’s a burglary involved, there’s an assault involved, that’s why we’re after the people, that gives us justification.”

The April 23 pursuit started after a woman reported there was a white SUV parked outside and people were in the house, owned by her parents. She also told them that her husband had been injured by someone named Jason, in an “altercation” at another location. She and her husband lived in the house with her parents, according to court papers.

The parents decided to press charges over the burglary but her husband didn’t over the assault. When contacted by law enforcement, he told investigators he was fine and that he did not want to speak with the investigator, according to the probable cause statement for the burglary and other charges brought against the female suspect, Maggie Schwartzenberger, 43. When investigators asked about who was driving the vehicle from which she fled, she said she only knew his first name, Jason.

Blakeslee said law enforcement had a pretty good idea of Jason’s identity and thought they would eventually catch him.