COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of Columbia Council met Monday to go over several topics, from recognizing Columbia Water for safe drinking water to using new technology in high-speed pursuits.
John Crangle, a 61-year resident of Columbia came to voice his concerns about police pursuits at the meeting. He says he has seen the tragedy that can come from these situations first-hand.
"The first one was Leroy Dantzler. I'm an attorney, but I also am a college professor, and I had Leroy Dantzler in my classes back in the late 1980s. He graduated in I think, 1990, but he was killed the first year he was out. He was a game warden, and he was involved in a pursuit and ended up in a collision... The other one is Stacy Case. She graduated in 2014... She was called to a shots fired in the Vista area of Columbia and she was going to it and the same time a policeman from the University of South Carolina police force and the two cars came together, and Stacy was killed," Crangle recalled.
Crangle says his students are his motivation behind urging the City Council on Monday to introduce safety technology into high-speed chase situations.
Council member Tyler Bailey has heard this cry for help and is hoping the council can work to find a solution for the city.
The possible use of Star Chase technology was mentioned in the meeting. This tech launches a GPS tracker onto the car being chased so officers do not have to continue pursuing.
"In those situations, the car can roll over. I mean, there's a lot of dangerous things that can happen. With technology today, like Star Chase using drones, GPS trackers, air support, there's so many other things you can do, rather than engage in high-speed police pursuits," Bailey explained.
The other tech mentioned was called The Grappler, which is a way for an officer to deflate the back tires of the car being chased.
Columbia Police Chief, Skip Holbrook says he will pull data on the police department's high-speed chases to present at the next Public Safety Committee meeting on May 28. This will help better inform the city council if special technology is needed when it comes to police pursuits.
Staying in the mindset for public safety, Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann proposed introducing a toolkit to help with hate crime ordinances within the city.
"It's just enhancing our existing ordinances to make sure that we can deal with some of the social media and other things that are going on today, especially when it comes around hate crimes because what we don't want is anybody to feel unsafe, intimidated, or have their rights infringed upon," Mayor Rickenmann explained.
Another topic highlighted in Monday's meeting was maintaining the character of Columbia's historic neighborhoods.
"We just want to make sure that people who have lived here, who have lived in Columbia for decades... can still enjoy Columbia as it changes as it grows," Council member Bailey explained. "That's why it's important to make sure that what people love about Columbia, the diversity of Columbia, the neighborhoods where you have people from all different walks of life... that people can still have this Columbia and we don't lose what makes us special."
All of the suggestions the city council made were not voted on and will need to go to various committees to be reviewed and voted on before anything can move forward.