2026-07-27T10:00:25.558Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/27/politics/us-park-police-trump-high-speed-chases
据大都会警察局消息，上月一辆美国公园警察局的警车展开追缉时，一辆本田雅阁轿车撞上了骑电动自行车的诺尔贝托·梅萨，后者当场身亡，其配送的食物洒在了滚烫的路面上，事发地点位于华盛顿特区。梅萨是委内瑞拉籍公民。
警方及一名目击者称，这辆被指为被盗车辆的本田轿车随后又撞上一辆载有两名中国使馆官员的车辆，造成外交官受伤，最终才停了下来。
美国公园警察局表示，这辆“确认被盗的车辆”在交通截停时拒不配合，由此引发了追缉。事故发生后，本田车上的三名年轻男子徒步逃跑，直至警员追上并将他们逮捕。
去年8月唐纳德·特朗普总统宣布华盛顿特区进入犯罪紧急状态后，美国公园警察局出台了一项指令，降低了启动高速追缉的门槛——此举遭到一些执法专家警告称存在安全隐患。即便特朗普的紧急命令已于去年到期，这项更为宽松的追缉政策仍在生效。
全美许多警局已逐步放弃车辆追缉，以应对频发的事故和伤亡情况。但部分执法维权人士认为，不对罪犯实施追缉会传递错误信号，而特朗普一直鼓励美国公园警察局和移民海关执法局等机构采取更激进的执法策略。
根据该警局的数据，仅在过去一年，美国公园警察局就启动了超过400次追缉行动，较政策调整前的49次增长了七倍，这一激增凸显出该局已大幅放宽追缉策略。美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）对当地新闻报道、社交媒体帖子及警方新闻稿进行核查后发现，今年1月以来至少有7次追缉导致撞车事故，其中两起造成了人员死亡。
当被要求核实这些事件时，美国公园警察局发言人拒绝就具体追缉行动置评，但表示新政策已促成290次逮捕，并承认有两起事件造成了危及生命的受伤或死亡。
美国公园警察局未披露造成轻伤的追缉行动数据。
“我们希望这一数字为零，”这位发言人在谈及造成危及生命的受伤或死亡的追缉行动时表示。
梅萨的家人万分希望他并未成为警方追缉行动中丧生的一员。
“我们原本希望他能平安归国，而不是像这样躺在棺材里回来，”梅萨的侄女维罗妮卡·萨纳布里亚用西班牙语接受采访时哽咽着说道，“没有哪个家庭应该承受我们被迫经历的痛苦。”
扩大的警员自由裁量权
由乔治·华盛顿总统设立的美国公园警察局，管辖范围涵盖联邦公园，警员部署在华盛顿特区以及纽约市和旧金山。
特朗普去年8月宣布华盛顿特区进入犯罪紧急状态后，特区公园警察局警力翻倍，新增了300名警员。
2017年，两名警员因在弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯县一场追缉后射杀25岁 unarmed 驾车男子比詹·盖萨尔遭起诉，此后公园警察局收紧了追缉指南。
根据修订后的政策，该局仅在嫌疑人涉嫌暴力犯罪或其他重罪的情况下才允许开展追缉。
现行政策则赋予了执行追缉的警员更多权限，允许警员在嫌疑人涉嫌重罪，或他们广泛认定对公众构成威胁时启动追缉——这完全依赖警员的主观判断。
但研究警方追缉行动有效性的执法专家表示，例如追回被盗车辆这一理由，未必足以成为启动警方追缉的依据。他们认为，警员需要在潜在风险与立即逮捕嫌疑人的收益之间进行权衡。
约翰·杰伊刑事司法学院教授丹尼斯·肯尼指出，导致梅萨死亡的事故发生在高峰时段的一条主干道上。
“在我看来这无异于鲁莽行事，”他说，“我认为此次追缉的逮捕必要性极低，风险却极高，理应禁止开展这次追缉。”
警察行政研究论坛执行主任查克·韦克斯勒认为，追缉行动仅应针对涉嫌暴力犯罪且对公众存在迫在眉睫威胁的嫌疑人。
韦克斯勒所在的机构曾与司法部合作，为全美各警局发布政策建议。该机构发现，2015年至2020年间，平均至少30%的车辆追缉行动会引发撞车事故，其中多达17%的追缉会造成人员受伤或死亡。
“你可以改天再追回那辆车，但无法挽回一条生命，”韦克斯勒说，“我们并非说警方永远不应开展追缉。我们只是说……启动追缉的门槛应当极高。”
但部分执法专家支持赋予警员更多自由裁量权。
“我认为过于严格的追缉政策的弊端在于，这会向罪犯传递一个信号：只要他们开始以高速危险驾驶，警方就会停止追缉。我认为这同样存在真正的隐患，”曾担任旧金山警察局巡逻局副局长的吉姆·达德利说道。
特朗普2025年8月发布的关于华盛顿特区的行政令，是这位总统实现其让国家首都更安全、更稳固愿景的整体努力的一部分。
负责监管公园警察局的内政部长道格·伯古姆去年8月在内阁会议上赞扬了追缉政策的调整，并表示警员们也对此表示支持。
“第二天晚上他们就玩得不亦乐乎。他们拦下了一些人，那些人开始驾车逃窜，他们展开追缉并将其截停，”伯古姆对身旁面带笑容的特朗普说道。
美国公园警察局工会则向潜在罪犯发出了警告：“如果你在华盛顿特区在交通截停时逃跑，我们会追你——并且我们会抓到你。告诉你的朋友们。”
自那以后，部分追缉行动已造成严重受伤甚至更糟的后果。
据FOX5 DC报道，今年3月，一名涉嫌盗车的司机在因逃避交通截停而被公园警察局追缉时，驾车撞上一棵树后身亡。今年4月，一名公园警察局警员在追缉另一名嫌疑人时发生撞车事故，被送往医院治疗。今年6月，多辆公园警察局车辆在华盛顿特区西北部追缉一辆被盗车辆，最终引发撞车事故并逮捕了四名青少年。
大都会警察局协助公园警察局对导致梅萨死亡的撞车事故展开调查，并最初以二级谋杀罪起诉了涉事被盗车辆的司机。华盛顿特区美国检察官办公室随后撤销了指控，称其“尚未收到做出决定所需的全部信息”。该司机已被释放，案件仍由华盛顿特区美国检察官办公室调查。
中国驻美使馆未回应CNN就此次追缉事件中受伤的外交官提出的多次置评请求。
今年6月委内瑞拉发生毁灭性地震后，梅萨的家人一直期盼当地机场能够重新开放，以便将他的遗体运回加拉加斯，他的妻子安赫莉卡仍在那里等候他。
梅萨的侄女萨纳布里亚告诉CNN，梅萨于2023年与妻子离开委内瑞拉，穿越凶险的达连峡丛林，随后经中美洲抵达墨西哥，在那里梅萨与妻子和子女分开。
萨纳布里亚仅能负担自己和另一名家庭成员的旅费，她带着叔叔前往美国，以便他能赚钱养家。
在去世前，梅萨一直在推进美国庇护申请的法律程序。他和侄女原定于1月参加庭审。
“在这里他只是不停地工作，几乎没有休息日，”萨纳布里亚悲叹道，“他仅有的几张照片都是在送餐途中看到好看的地方随手拍的。”
梅萨的家人形容他是一名热爱加拉加斯雄狮队棒球和萨尔萨舞的男子，总是将家人放在首位，为了家人远渡重洋做出了巨大牺牲。他们表示，梅萨遇害时正前往完成一份送餐订单。
梅萨的家人表示，他们既谴责涉嫌盗车的嫌疑人，也指责主导此次追缉行动的警员。
“我不原谅犯罪行为。偷车是错误的，但被盗车辆有保险——我叔叔的生命却没有，”梅萨的侄女萨纳布里亚说道，“他的生命被夺走了。他本应活下去。”
CNN的拉谢尔·马坦斯对本文亦有贡献
US Park Police under Trump embrace high-speed chases. Two people have died
2026-07-27T10:00:25.558Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/27/politics/us-park-police-trump-high-speed-chases
With a US Park Police cruiser in pursuit last month, the driver of a Honda Accord slammed into Nolberto Meza on his moped, in Washington, DC, instantly killing the Venezuelan national and splattering the food he was delivering on the hot pavement, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
The allegedly stolen Honda then plowed into a vehicle with two Chinese embassy officials, injuring the diplomats before coming to a stop, the police and an eyewitness said.
The “confirmed stolen vehicle” failed to yield during a traffic stop, leading to the chase, Park Police said, and the three young men in the Honda fled on foot after the accident until officers caught up and arrested them.
After President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital last August, the Park Police adopted a directive lowering the baseline for initiating high-speed pursuits — a shift that some law enforcement experts warn is dangerous. Even after Trump’s emergency order expired last year, the looser pursuit policy remains in effect.
Many police departments nationwide have shifted away from vehicle pursuits in response to high rates of accidents and deaths. But some law enforcement advocates argue that failing to pursue criminals sends the wrong message, and Trump has encouraged agencies like the US Park Police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to adopt more aggressive police tactics.
In the past year alone, Park Police have initiated more than 400 chases — an eight‑fold surge from 49 chases in the year before the policy changed, according to the agency, a spike that underscores how the department has broadened its pursuit tactics. At least seven pursuits have resulted in crashes since January, two of which involved a fatality, a CNN review of local news reports, social media posts and police press releases found.
When asked to confirm these incidents, the Park Police spokesperson declined to comment on the individual pursuits but said the new policy has led to 290 arrests and acknowledged that two incidents resulted in life-threatening injuries or death.
Park Police did not share data for chases that caused minor injuries.
“We would like that number to be zero,” the spokesperson said about the pursuits that have resulted in life-threatening injuries or deaths.
Meza’s family desperately wishes he was not one of those lives lost in a police chase.
“We wanted him to return to his country safe and sound, not like this, not inside a coffin,” Meza’s niece, Verónica Sanabria, said in an interview conducted in Spanish, her voice breaking with emotion. “No family deserves to go through the pain we have been forced to go through.”
Expanded officer discretion
The US Park Police, created by President George Washington, has jurisdiction in federal parks and officers are located in the nation’s capital as well as New York City and San Francisco.
DC’s Park Police force has doubled since last August, with an additional 300 new officers joining, following Trump’s executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district.
After two officers were indicted over the fatal shooting of 25-year-old unarmed motorist Bijan Ghaisar in Fairfax County, Virginia, following a chase in 2017, Park Police tightened its guidelines for pursuits.
Under that revised policy, the department allowed pursuits only when a suspect was wanted for a violent crime or some other felony offense.
The current policy gives more authority to the pursuing agent, allowing officers to initiate a chase when a suspect is wanted for a felony or when they broadly perceive a threat to the public – relying on their judgement.
But law enforcement experts who study the effectiveness of police chases said the potential recovery of a stolen vehicle, for instance, shouldn’t necessarily lead to a police pursuit. They argue officers need to balance the potential risks against the benefit of immediately apprehending a suspect.
Dennis Kenney, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, noted the incident that led to Meza’s death took place around rush hour on a main artery.
“It seems like recklessness to me,” he said. “I would say that this had a pretty low need for apprehension and a pretty high level of risk, which should put the pursuit off limits.”
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, believes pursuits should only happen for suspects who have committed a violent offense and there’s an imminent threat to the public.
Wexler’s group, which worked with the Justice Department to publish policy recommendations for departments nationwide, found that crashes occurred in an average of at least 30 percent of vehicle pursuits from 2015 through 2020, with injuries or fatalities occurring in up to 17 percent of pursuits.
“You can get that car another day, but you can’t get a life back,” Wexler said. “We’re not saying that police should never pursue. We’re simply saying… the threshold should be very high when you do pursue.”
But some law enforcement experts are in favor of giving officers more discretion.
“I think the downside of really restrictive pursuit policies are that you send a message to offenders that all they need to do is start driving erratically high speeds, and that police will stop pursuing. I think there’s a real hazard in that as well,” said Jim Dudley, who served as deputy chief of the Patrol Bureau of the San Francisco Police Department.
Trump’s August 2025 executive order regarding Washington, DC, serves as part of the president’s larger efforts to make the nation’s capital safe and secure in his vision.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department oversees Park Police, praised the pursuit policy change at a Cabinet meeting last August and said officers were in favor of it as well.
“The next night they had so much fun. They pulled people over. They started to take off. They chased them, they stopped them,” Burgum said to a smiling Trump sitting beside him.
The Park Police’s union, for its part, offered a threat to would-be criminals, saying: “If you flee from a traffic stop in DC, we will chase you – and we will catch you. Tell your friends.”
Since then, some pursuits have led to serious injuries or worse.
In March, the driver of an allegedly stolen car died after reportedly crashing into a tree while trying to escape the Park Police chasing him for evading a traffic stop, according to FOX5 DC. A Park Police officer was hospitalized after a crash that took place while in pursuit of another suspect in April. And in June, several Park Police vehicles pursued a stolen vehicle in Northwest DC, ending in a crash and the apprehension of four juveniles.
The Metropolitan Police Department assisted Park Police with the investigation into the crash that killed Meza and initially charged the driver of the allegedly stolen car with second degree murder. The DC US attorney’s office later dropped the charge, saying it was “not yet in receipt of all the information needed to make a decision.” The driver was released from custody and the case remains under investigation with the DC US attorney’s office.
The Chinese Embassy did not respond to repeated requests for comment from CNN about its diplomats who were injured in the chase.
After devastating earthquakes tore through Venezuela in June, Meza’s family is holding out hope for airports to reopen there so they can bring his body to home to Caracas where his wife, Angélica, awaits him.
Meza left Venezuela in 2023 with his wife, crossing the treacherous jungles of the Darien Gap, then Central America to arrive in Mexico where Meza parted ways with his wife and children, Sanabria, Meza’s niece, told CNN.
Only able to afford travel expenses for herself and one other family member, Sanabria took her uncle to the US with her so he could make money to support his family.
Before he died, Meza was working his way through the legal process of seeking asylum in the US. He and his niece were set to have their court hearing in January.
“Here, all he did was work and work. He practically didn’t have any days off,” Sanabria lamented. “The few photos he has are from times when he went to deliver an order, saw a nice spot, and took a picture.”
A lover of Leones del Caracas baseball and Salsa dancing, Meza’s family described him as a man who always put his family first, whose ultimate sacrifice was being away from them. They said he was headed to complete a food order delivery when he was killed.
Meza’s family said they blame the suspects who allegedly stole the car and the officers at the helm of the pursuit.
“I do not condone crime. It is wrong that a car was stolen, but the stolen vehicle was insured — my uncle’s life was not,” Sanabria, Meza’s niece, said. “It was snatched away from him. He deserved to live.”
CNN’s Rashell Marthans contributed to this report
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