CHARLOTTE, N.C. — They are at once riveting and nerve-wracking to watch -- the harrowing high-speed chases Eyewitness News has followed with Chopper 9 Skyzoom the last few months.
And a Channel 9 investigation has revealed that the pursuits are happening more than ever.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department reported 34 pursuits in 2015. That number rose to 48 last year, and already in 2017 they've been involved in at least 37, many of them endangering officers and innocent drivers along the way.
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“He was coming full force and I noticed he wasn't stopping for the officers, and all I kept thinking was, 'Oh my goodness, we're going to get hurt real bad,’” said a woman who was hit during a chase on Albemarle Road in 2016.
She did not want to be identified.
She walked away from the collision but will never forget the feeling of helplessness as the car police were chasing careened into hers.
“As he bounced off me, he hit me again in the front,” she said.
Police arrested that driver, 21-year-old Eric Luna, about 20 minutes after the crash, on a long list of charges -- some tied to the chase, another for taking the car at gunpoint and one for assault.
In fact, CMPD has arrested nearly 100 people involved in chases over the last three years.
Like Luna, many of them were facing charges connected to the chases, along with other, more serious charges, from breaking and entering to robbery and murder.
Channel 9 reporter Mark Becker reviewed court records from dozens of those cases and found that 14 of them either pleaded guilty to the chase charges or were found guilty of those charges at trial.
But 25 others had those charges dismissed, most of them in plea deals with prosecutors.
“There are limited amounts of time that they can serve on these cases,” said Assistant District Attorney Bruce Lillie.
Lillie told Channel 9 that the charges connected to the chases are often less serious than other charges those defendants may be facing, and that's why they're dismissed.
“The flee to elude is one charge that's involved in their case, but there are other charges as well,” Lillie explained. “So if we convict him on that higher level felony and send him to prison for years, we feel like justice has been done.”
CMPD Deputy Chief Jeff Estes told Becker that police can't control what happens in court, but they do review every pursuit internally and remind officers when they can and cannot chase a suspect because of what's at stake.
“Chases are dangerous,” said Estes. “They're dangerous for the officers, they're dangerous for the suspects and more importantly, they're dangerous for the citizens.”
The woman who was involved in the chase was lucky -- she wasn't seriously hurt, and her insurance covered most of the bills.
Luna was sent to prison for almost seven years on federal charges but dozens of other suspects, including those involved in all the chases Channel 9 has witnessed this year, are still waiting for their cases to go to court.
Chances are, many of them will go to prison, but not for what they did in those terrifying moments on the road that had so many on edge.
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