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It's bumper tag, but it's no game photo by Jim Craven Jackson County and Medford police officers practice their technique Friday in spinning out a suspect's car by tapping the rear bumper with their vehicle. Police learn new way to end chases ASHLAND -- The cars speed through the orange cones, one pursuing the other. The Medford police and Jackson County Sheriff's Department are just the fourth and fifth agencies in Oregon to adopt the maneuver. Suddenly, the police car taps the "suspect" car's fender, spinning it around like a bumper car. Medford police and Jackson County sheriff's deputies practiced the technique over and over Friday, learning a new way to stop fleeing cars and end police chases. "It's a very advanced maneuver and it's aggressive looking, but at the same time it's very controlled," said Medford officer Tony Young, one of the instructors. In learning the move pioneered by police in Southern California, the Medford police and Jackson County Sheriff's Department are just the fourth and fifth agencies in Oregon to adopt the maneuver as a tactic in chases. The technique can end chases quickly and safely, said Jackson County sheriff's Deputy Joe Puckett, who is another instructor. "It's a big issue that we're not only catching the bad guy, but we're not running into people," Puckett said. The practice is called "pursuit intervention technique" and the idea is to nudge the front fender of the police car against the back fender of the fleeing car. With the right timing, the suspect's car will spin about 180 degrees. Medford officer Greg Nichols, another instructor, said that many times the suspect's car will stall or the suspect will just give up. "If it's done right, it causes very little damage to both cars," Nichols said. Southern California police copied the technique from race car drivers, Puckett said. This year, Puckett, Young and Nichols and two other Medford officers were sent to an instructors course on the technique in San Bernardino, Calif. That city's police department has an extensive training yard for this maneuver. They earned certificates to teach the technique and started giving classes to their fellow officers this month. Puckett said 75 to 80 police officers will learn the program during several courses over the next month. The new method represents a change in dealing with fleeing suspects. The sheriff's department used to be aggressive in pursuit, Puckett said. "We used to pursue people until they ran out of gas, crashed or gave up," Puckett said. In recent years, police eased off pursuits in the wake of crashes elsewhere that injured or killed innocent bystanders. Last year, the sheriff's department and the Medford police started aggressively training to use spike strips to flatten tires of fleeing cars, he said. Both departments are still developing guidelines on when and how to use the technique, Nichols said. "It's not something that we're going to use for every pursuit," Nichols said. "It's something that we'll use if the circumstances are right." Young is the only officer with both departments to have used the technique. Last year, he was patrolling in Medford when a drunken driver narrowly missed his car and a pedestrian. Young followed the car as it was speeding around corners and he saw the rear end of the suspect's car was fish-tailing. Young moved his patrol car up, tapped the back fender of the suspect's car, spinning it around. The driver gave up immediately, Young said. "In the big picture, you're talking a small amount of damage to the car," Young said. "Here, we're ending something that could be fatal." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA