Two Philly police officers can’t be sued for chasing after a drug suspect who crashed his car and killed a bystander, appeals court rules

Two Philadelphia police officers who drove after a fleeing drug suspect until the man crashed his car and killed a bystander cannot be sued for causing the fatal collision because the officers didn’t intend to harm anyone, a federal appeals court ruled.

In an opinion issued last week, the three-judge panel from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the officers, Christian Kane and Alexander Hernandez, were forced to make a quick decision in 2020 when they sped after a man they’d seen dealing drugs in Kensington.

The pursuit of the suspect, Tahir Ellison, proceeded at a normal speed for a few blocks, court documents said, but became dangerous after Ellison drove through a red light and down a one-way street. The episode ended in tragedy when Ellison ignored another red light and crashed into Virgen Martinez’s car at the intersection of Allegheny and Frankford Avenues, killing Martinez, a 47-year-old mother of four.

Ellison pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges including third-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, court records show.

But Martinez’s relatives sued Kane and Hernandez, arguing in part that their decision to speed after Ellison — which violated the police department’s policy to avoid most car chases — made them liable for her death. Last year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott W. Reid agreed that that question should be put before a jury.

The officers appealed. And in the opinion issued last week, Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote that although Hernandez’s death was a tragedy, the officers made a “snap judgment” to pursue Ellison, and did not behave egregiously during the portion of the chase in which Ellison began speeding and ignoring traffic signals.

“We ask not whether in hindsight [the officers] chose rightly, but whether they intended to cause harm,” Bibas wrote.

Philadelphia police directives generally prohibit car chases, which are often dangerous for both citizens and officers. Exceptions are made only if officers are seeking to capture suspects fleeing violent felonies, or to prevent imminent death or serious injuries.

An Inquirer investigation published last year found that about half of all reported chases by Philadelphia police were in violation of department polices, and that the city had spent about $20 million since 2020 to settle crash- or chase-related lawsuits involving police.

Earlier this year, the city agreed to pay $2.9 million to settle a lawsuit over another crash in which a man on a dirt bike being pursued by a city police officer struck two bystanders — including a 6-year-old girl — in Upper Darby.

In that case, however, the officer initiated the chase without witnessing any crime, continued driving after the man for nearly 10 miles, and was later accused by the department of providing false statements to a superior and falsifying official documents.

Bibas wrote that Kane and Alexander, by contrast, “had a split second” to decide whether to follow Ellison, whom they’d seen dealing drugs from his car. And the dangerous portion of the pursuit spanned about half a mile and 39 seconds before Ellison crashed into Martinez’s vehicle.

Jim Waldenberger, one of the attorneys who filed suit on behalf of Hernandez’s relatives, said he and his colleagues disagreed with the ruling. Before the officers’ pursuit turned dangerous, Waldenberger said, they’d been pursuing Ellison at a normal speed with their police lights on for several blocks, meaning their decision to continue the chase when he sped up was not a snap judgment made under unavoidable pressure.

The department conducted an internal investigation and found that the officers violated departmental policies regarding pursuits, and each spent at least several months on administrative duty, court documents said. The documents did not specify whether either officer faced additional discipline, and the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Waldenberger said he and his colleagues were still weighing whether or not to appeal the Third Circuit’s ruling on the officers’ liability.

The lawsuit, meanwhile, can still proceed on more limited grounds surrounding whether the city sufficiently trains police officers regarding pursuits.