More than three months after a 3-year-old girl was killed by a driver allegedly fleeing a traffic stop, a lawmaker got emotional introducing a new bill.
Zoey’s Law is named after Zoey Harrison. She was killed March 7 in Prince George's County while riding in a car with her mother. The bill aims to put in place clear policies on police pursuits.
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WATCH HEREOn March 21, a Prince George's County officer spotted a car whose driver had just fled a traffic stop and accelerated down Martin Luther King Jr. Highway.
The driver refused to stop and collided with a car at Belle Haven Drive, according to the Independent Investigations Division.
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SIGN UP Patricia Riddick, the driver of the car that was struck by the fleeing driver, was killed.
The 34-year-old was one of three people killed in Prince George's County within three weeks by drivers fleeing traffic stops.
“You can’t chase in this community where there’s people, everyday people walking around or living,” said Gwendolyn Perkins, Zoey's godmother.
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“Zoey lit up the room,” her mother said.
In an emotional news conference introducing the bill, Zoey's mother and siblings were all in tears as they remembered the little girl.
“My sister had a life,” Zoey’s sister said. “She had a long life to live.”
“After she died I couldn’t live my life,” her brother said.
The bill's sponsor is Prince George's County Council Member Krystal Oriadha.
“It’s about codifying what the rules are as the law of the county,” she said. “It can’t just be an internal policy. That doesn’t have the same weight as the chief saying, ‘Let's not do this.' If it’s saying, ‘No the law says you are not able to do this,’ and it gives ground for punishment if the officer breaks what is clearly the law.”
Under the bill, if it is passed by the county council, pursuits would be limited to felonies, violent misdemeanors and a situation in which a suspect poses an imminent threat to others.
It would also establish a pursuit review board, which would be a redundancy. The independent investigations division of the attorney general's office already investigates all police-involved fatal pursuits, and the pursuit policy of Prince George’s County police closely mirrors Oriadha’s proposed bill.
“For most of my colleagues that I have spoken to about this legislation, they understand the need for it,” Oriadha said.
No charges have been filed yet in any of the three fatal crashes.
