In the wake of a fatal motorcycle crash during a July Vallejo police pursuit, an impacted family member and advocates are calling for strict guidelines on such chases or eliminating them.
The incident that sparked the demands took place July 14 near the intersection of Sonoma Boulevard and Tennessee Street. Some details are disputed, but it is undisputed that the motorcyclist, Marcus Kutterer, crashed and died.
Injuries and deaths of drivers, passengers, and bystanders are not unusual in police chases. In June, a driver fleeing police crashed into another car in San Jose. The crash killed one and injured two.
Two people were killed and a third critically injured in Morgan Hill when a police pursuit ended in a crash in April.
These are just a few examples of the ill effects of police pursuits, and these effects are not confined to the Bay Area or California. As just one example, a quarter of the nearly 2,300 New York City chases in 2024 resulted in damage or physical harm, according to the New York City Police Department.
At least 30 percent of police vehicle chases include collisions, and up to nearly one-fifth bring injuries or deaths, according to research cited in a landmark 2023 study by the Police Executive Research Forum, which researched the issue with support from the Department of Justice.
That study warned that “pursuits are high-risk events that put the lives of officers, suspects and the public at risk.”
The group urged police departments to only allow pursuits in the case of violent crime or if a driver posed “an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.
“When pursuits go wrong and innocent, uninvolved people are injured or killed, public trust in the police is undermined,” the study’s authors said.
Public trust in the police is a major issue in Vallejo. The police department is under a court order to perform 45 reforms mandated by the California Department of Justice in September 2020. The reforms followed years of scandals, deadly officer-involved shootings and millions of dollars in settlements of lawsuits claiming excessive force by Vallejo police.
“For me, the most important thing is rebuilding trust,” Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce said at Tuesday’s city council meeting. “It’s going to require atonement and intent.”
Sorce was responding after more than 10 family members of people impacted by Vallejo police spoke at the meeting demanding police reform. Though they did not speak, the adult daughter and sister of Marcus Kutterer, who died in the Vallejo pursuit that ended with a motorcycle crash, were present.
One of the speakers, Cat Brooks, longtime police advocate and co-founder of the Anti-Police-Terror Project, demanded, “Institute a no-police-chase policy.” Other speakers repeated the demand.
In June 2025, Brooks told KQED, “Every year, police high-speed chases kill more people than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. They don’t solve crime, and they don’t prevent crime.”
Kutterer’s daughter Ariana Ramirez-Kutterer, 25, said she supports changing the police department’s policies regarding pursuits, either with a ban or with guidelines along the lines of those proposed by the Police Executive Research Forum.
“For a misdemeanor stop, why would you think you need a pursuit?” Ramirez-Kutterer asked.
“With the Flock cameras and all the technology they have, why don’t they use the technology to find the suspect later?” she asked.
By “Flock cameras,” Ramirez-Kutterer was referring to automated license plate readers, in this case from the Flock company used by Vallejo police. Automated license plate readers are high-speed cameras that can quickly capture photographs of license plate numbers to capture their location at a specific time.
Mobile license plate readers attach to law enforcement vehicles to collect license plate data of vehicles on public roads. Mobile license plate readers can collect data from thousands of vehicles in just a few minutes, according to Flock.
The idea is that instead of giving chase, an officer could use the Flock system to read the plate of a vehicle nearby, and then ask the system to track the vehicle’s whereabouts.
In fact, Vallejo Deputy Police Chief Bob Knight said at a public meeting Monday that the Flock system had been used to track the stolen vehicle involved in a July 20 officer-involved shooting.
“The vehicle was entered into the department’s stolen vehicle system and vehicle information was placed into the Flock license plate reader software,” Knight said.
About 56 minutes later, the Flock system alerted officers that the victim’s vehicle was in north Vallejo, according to Knight.
Also, Ramirez-Kutterer said, “A pursuit is especially dangerous with a motorcycle.”
Multiple sources confirm her assertion. A report from the Public Risk Management Association describes motorcycle pursuits as “a special risk.”
“Riders have little protection, so agencies are encouraged to prohibit or strongly discourage chasing motorcycles unless the threat is extreme, such as an active shooter fleeing. Similarly, officers on police motorcycles are generally advised not to engage in pursuits for their own safety,” according to the association’s blog.
Ramirez-Kutterer said, “If you chase someone on a motorcycle, you’re chasing them to their death.”
Civil rights attorney Melissa Nold said she too supports a ban on police pursuits in Vallejo.
Nold, who has represented residents in cases against the Vallejo Police Department over the years, also spoke at the council meeting Tuesday.
Contacted after the meeting, she said to bring a pursuit policy change about, “the (Department of Justice) has to sign off on any policy changes due to the reform lawsuit and settlement agreement.
“However, the DOJ had to intervene regarding the city’s market increase in fatal pursuits after Chief (Shawny) Williams’ forced resignation, and considering the recent concealed fatal pursuit, I believe they would approve it quickly,” Nold said.