ST. ALBANS, WV (WOWK) – St. Albans Police Chief Joe Crawford says the officer who crashed yesterday was on her way to assist in a police pursuit. “Our officer was responding, the crash is kind of separate from the pursuit,” said Crawford.

Police were trying to detain Timothy Workman, who has arrest warrants in Boone County. Workman was able to get away and is not in custody at this time. “We disengaged in the pursuit at that point. The supervisor responded to the crash scene,” said Crawford.

Crawford says every police agency has a different pursuit policy, some even have a “no-pursuit” policy, meaning they don’t chase suspects down. He says their policy contains many factors:

“Obviously the shift commander or the supervisor can call it off. The officer can call it off and it’s basically a number of factors: time of day, traffic congestion, road conditions of where they’re actually at when the pursuit’s taking place, so there’s a number of factors the officer is trying to evaluate on top of doing everything else that they’re trying to do.”

The severity of the situation dictates whether or not to pursue a vehicle in a chase. “This one ended up being that the suspect was wanted, the car was stolen,” says Crawford.

Both people involved in the crash were admitted to the hospital and both have been released with minor injuries. The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office is investigating this crash.