By Irene Rotondo
masslive.com
BOSTON — Massachusetts State Police have taken a page out of a James Bond novel. The department’s new GPS projectile gadget lets officers abandon police road pursuits and still find the person who got away.
“It’s ultimately going to save lives ... it’s a game-changer, in that it’s a fantastic de-escalation tool,” said Lt. Colonel Mark Cyr during a tech demonstration in Ayer on Thursday.
The StarChase technology is called Guardian-VX. It’s been used in other states such as Florida and Texas, and was rolled out in Massachusetts on May 16. As of October, 30 State Police cruisers were outfitted with the gadget. StarChase has been deployed 54 times with a 75% success rate so far.
How does the device work?
The StarChase device comes in several pieces. It includes a projectile launcher fixed to the cruiser’s front grill, the projectile itself, a control panel and a key fob.
The cylindrical projectile is roughly the size of a mini soda can and has a sticky foam bottom. The device’s hard black body encases GPS tracking technology, which updates its location every five seconds. The Nerf-like gadget travels in an 18 to 20-foot range.
State police demonstrated how projectiles are put into a cruiser’s launch box two at a time and how they are deployed. Trooper Colton Leary gave the presentation and Trooper Robert Beer helped with the demonstration.
The StarChase device can be useful in situations like AMBER alerts or stolen vehicles, as well as when drivers flee traffic stops, Cyr said.
He gave the example of a 90-mph police chase on a heavily trafficked highway.
“As soon as that tracking tag is deployed on the back of the vehicle, that trooper can back off, lights off, sirens off … that fleeing vehicle, within a couple [of] minutes, is going to slow down,” he said.
The trooper can then ping the device and track down the driver’s location.
If a driver discovers the tracker after getting out of their car and takes it off or destroys it, officers can still track the device’s most recent location — even if the car has traveled out of state, Leary said.
Police road pursuits can be dangerous
“It’s keeping the trooper safe, it helps keep the suspect that’s fleeing safe and, most importantly, it keeps the other people on the road safe,” Cyr said.
Massachusetts does not have “No Chase Laws” and each police department has its own regulations and restrictions on road pursuits. State troopers are legally allowed to chase suspects in their cruisers.
However, police pursuits can be dangerous or even fatal for bystanders, the suspect and the officer.
An International Association of Police Chiefs (IACP) 2019 document has several policy considerations for vehicular pursuits. It specifies officers should not pursue when “the subject(s) can be identified with enough certainty that they can be apprehended at a later time unless a greater danger would result.”
Between 2018 and 2022, an average of 64% of State Police chases started with a civil or traffic violation, while 13% of pursuits in 2022 started with a felony, according to a report from WHDH.
The State Police do not have the same limits for pursuing drivers connected to felonies as Springfield, Framingham, and Braintree, according to he report.
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