WARRENTON — It was early in the evening on April 7 when Warrenton police received a call from Walmart on S.E. Ensign Lane, reporting the suspected theft of more than $1,000 worth of merchandise.

The call wasn’t so different from others that come from the region’s busiest commercial hub. But quickly, things escalated.

With a police officer close behind, Sean Mobley fled from the store to the parking lot, clambering into a silver Toyota Corolla and starting the engine. He quickly reversed, ramming into a patrol car that had pulled up behind him, then changed direction, speeding past two officers into an SUV and a light post.

Mobley opened the Corolla’s door and took off running — but not before officers had attempted to break the car’s windows with the butts of their guns and fired shots at the vehicle. Eventually, the officers brought him down and put him in handcuffs near the Walmart garden section. By the end of the night, the Clatsop County Major Crimes Team had been activated for a police shooting.

The Astorian sought use-of-force reports and other documents from the Warrenton Police Department through the state’s public records law to provide context to a police pursuit and shooting that could have have placed bystanders at grave risk. For the most part, the incident was an anomaly — but it illustrates the challenges a small police department like Warrenton faces in responding to frequent theft from big-box stores.

Often, suspects are arrested or cited without incident or have a warrant issued for their arrest if they manage to take off before police arrive. But when a situation escalates, officers are faced with a dilemma: How aggressively should they pursue suspects in property crimes?

An ongoing challenge

Walmart, which chose not to provide a comment to The Astorian for this story, is far from the only retailer that works with police to address theft. Larger stores often have high-quality video surveillance and loss prevention officers who can help law enforcement identify suspects.

Ryan Jacobsen, the general manager of Costco Wholesale in Warrenton, said the store’s relationship with the Warrenton Police Department generally works well.

“Having experienced challenges in other markets and in other communities, it’s very refreshing to feel like you have a partner and feel like you’re going to get a quick response and that there’s resources available, because that hasn’t always been the case in other areas,” Jacobsen said.

Costco is somewhat unique in that it operates on a member system, making it easier to identify customers. Nevertheless, the store takes internal loss-prevention measures and managers are advised to call police in almost all suspected cases of theft.

“As far as challenges go, I think we have the same challenges anywhere,” Jacobsen said. “And we just do everything in our power to deter that activity by making sure everybody knows that we’re going to prosecute and do everything to the extent of the law that we can to show there’s consequences for that behavior.”

Other large retailers in Warrenton follow similar practices. But once police are called in, they have to make a judgment call for themselves.

Despite the varying policies for initiating pursuit among law enforcement agencies, officers statewide are still required to use their discretion to weigh the safety risks posed to the community against the benefit of capturing a suspect.

In Bend, for example, the police department prohibits vehicle pursuits, with limited exceptions for felony crimes against people and other dangerous situations, a policy intended to reduce the number of pursuits by officers.

In 2023, the Portland Police Bureau’s restrictions on pursuits were significantly eased after the department noticed a strong inclination for suspects to elude traffic stops and drive extremely dangerously despite having no officers in pursuit.

In a shift from a Portland policy implemented in 2017 directing officers to only pursue for felony crimes against people or other dangerous situations, the updated policy outlines an explicit set of factors that could prompt a pursuit outside of those situations. Officers are also encouraged to consider the totality of circumstances, a method of analysis where decisions are made according to all available information as opposed to concrete rules.

Police in Washington state have navigated similar changes. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed amendments to the state’s police pursuit law, lowering the threshold of evidence required for a pursuit. As compared to a 2021 law, which limited the types of suspected crimes that could result in a chase, the new law restores officers’ authority to engage in a pursuit if there is reasonable suspicion a law has been violated.

Proponents of the change cited concerns about rising crime since the 2021 law was passed, while opponents highlighted the potential for negative outcomes associated with high-speed chases. Individual law enforcement agencies have taken different approaches to their policies in reaction to the change.

‘We have to go with what we have’

Warrenton Police Chief Mathew Workman said pursuits stemming from theft are rare in the department’s jurisdiction, but it’s up to individual officers to decide whether to pursue a suspect on foot or in a vehicle. Often, the decision comes down to whether the suspect has already been identified and can be flagged through a warrant, whether violence has occurred and whether the offense is a felony or a misdemeanor.

A theft of over $1,000 worth of merchandise becomes a felony.

Workman said that because vehicle pursuits are inherently dangerous, officers must decide whether the danger of the pursuit outweighs the risk of letting a suspect escape. Warrenton’s policy dictates that in the event of a pursuit, the officer must report a number of things to dispatch, including the crime committed, the speed of the eluding vehicle, what the suspect is doing and if any weapons are involved.

“They could be something that started off as a simple property crime in a big-box store, or any store for that matter, and then all of a sudden as you’re pursuing them, they’re shooting out a window with a firearm or something,” he said. “So that changes the whole thing. It has to be fluid. It has to be in the moment.”

If a supervisor is not involved, dispatch will notify one and have them begin monitoring the situation.

“I think with one of the last ones, I was notified,” Workman said. “I immediately run and grab my portable and I start listening to what the pursuit is. If I don’t have it, I’m on the phone, usually with dispatch, saying ‘What was the reason? What’s the pursuit for?’”

Officers are free to terminate pursuits at any time, for any reason. The most common reason to end a vehicle pursuit is concerns of danger to the public.

“There’s other reasons people take off, and that’s in the back of our minds, too,” Workman said. “Why is this person running for a simple $100, $200, $300 shoplift at a store? And so you kind of start drawing conclusions.”

Workman said that many of the suspects who are arrested for theft at big-box stores end up having a warrant for violent crimes or otherwise serious offenses. The suspect in the pursuit at Walmart in April was on parole for a violent crime.

“The problem is, we’re not in a position to draw conclusions,” Workman added. “We have to go with what we have.”

Policy violations

After being arrested in April, Mobley, the suspect in the Walmart theft, pleaded no contest to fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, theft in the first degree, criminal mischief in the second degree and recklessly endangering another person and was sentenced to 22 months in prison.

The officers involved also faced repercussions.

Though the choice to pursue relies on individual officer discretion, they must act within the policy requirements set by the police department. When attempting to prevent or stop a suspect from fleeing, officers rely on the rules of pursuit intervention, defined by the department as “an attempt to stop the suspect’s ability to continue to flee in a vehicle through tactical application of technology.”

Often, those tactics involve tire deflation devices, blocking or vehicle intercept, the PIT maneuver (in which a pursuing vehicle forces another vehicle to turn sideways suddenly, disabling the driver) and ramming or roadblock procedures.

But the policy advises that the use of firearms is not generally an effective tactic. Due to the danger associated with discharging the weapons, officers are only permitted to utilize firearms in an ongoing pursuit in accordance with deadly force requirements, meaning that the suspect must pose a threat or imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or someone else.

Following the incident at Walmart in April, a multiagency use-of-force review board met and reviewed all evidence, including written documents and videos.

One officer’s use of force — shooting at the vehicle solely to disable it — was deemed unjustified per police department policy. The other officer who fired at the vehicle was not found to be out of stride with department policy, given the totality of circumstances. Both officers were verbally counseled and received training on not using weapons as devices to break vehicle windows.

“That is a tactic that is not part of training received and could only be used if it was the only means of survival in a life or death matter,” the force response report found.

A third officer violated policy by making unwarranted remarks toward the restrained suspect and was corrected on his speech and reminded to uphold integrity, even in stressful situations.

The Warrenton Police Department has not made any policy changes since the police shooting. But Workman said the incident was discussed departmentwide during a training session where officers reviewed various scenarios and the applicable policies.

“I just want people to know that there’s a lot of things that go into a decision on whether to pursue, whether to continue to pursue, and whether to terminate a pursuit,” Workman said. “And we try to train to get the officers past that inherent police nature, or any kind of law enforcement nature, that, ‘I’m here to catch people doing things wrong, and I want to catch them,’ you know?

“You have to get past that and say, ‘Yes, we want you to have that mentality, but when things start escalating, you need to shift gears — is this worth it?’”