Trump changed the rules for Park Police. Now an innocent man is dead.

It was played for laughs during an August 2025 cabinet meeting. Since then, things have turned deadly.

In a cabinet meeting at the White House on August 26, 2025, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum praised President Trump for spearheading a rule change for the U.S. Park Police, allowing them to freely engage in vehicle pursuits.

Burgum said he was “shocked” to find out that Park Police were not able to pursue vehicles in all circumstances. The prior rules limited police chases to incidents involving violent crimes. But, Burgum announced, “we got that rule changed in 24 hours because of President Trump’s leadership.”

According to Burgum, “the next night” the Park Police had “so much fun” chasing “bad guys.” Trump and other cabinet officials laughed. He also characterized the new policy as “a lighter note.”

The Park Police union, linking to Burgum’s remarks, joined in on the fun on X.

10 months later, an innocent bystander — 46-year-old delivery driver Nolberto Meza — is dead. Meza died when his moped was struck by a vehicle being chased by Park Police. The chase would not have been permissible before the policy change because police were not pursuing suspects engaged in a violent crime.

Meza is at least the second fatality directly related to Trump and Burgum’s policy. In March, a Park Police chase resulted in the death of 18-year-old Josue Chavez when a vehicle “struck a tree and burst into flames.”

The policy change for Park Police vehicle pursuits was purportedly a temporary measure related to President Trump’s August 11, 2025 executive order “Declaring a Crime Emergency In The District Of Columbia,” which expired in 30 days. (In 2024, crime in DC was actually “the lowest it has been in over 30 years.”) But the new vehicle pursuit policy, formally issued on August 14, 2025, has never been rescinded or replaced.

In a September 24, 2025, letter to Burgum and Park Police Chief Scott Brecht, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) said they had learned Park Police “personnel have nevertheless continued engaging in these high-speed pursuits.” Huffman and Ansari wrote that “it remains unclear what legal authority, if any, currently authorizes the USPP to conduct these dangerous chases, other than presidential fiat.”

The extreme danger of police chases

While Burgum played up police chases for laughs, the acute danger of police vehicle pursuits has been well-established. A report of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1990 described vehicles as “the deadliest weapon in the police arsenal.”

According to a study published by the American Medical Association, there were approximately 4,415 fatalities resulting from police vehicle pursuits between 2017 and 2021. Most of these pursuits were related to minor offenses. A 2023 report by the DOJ and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found that “more than 90 percent of pursuits are initiated because of traffic violations.”

Police vehicle pursuits are extremely dangerous. According to the PERF report, “crashes occur in at least 30 percent of vehicle pursuits, and injuries or fatalities occur in 5 to 17 percent of pursuits.” Worse, more than 20% of serious injuries are inflicted on “persons not involved in the pursuit.”

The recommendation of the PERF report is that pursuits should occur only when both “a violent crime has been committed” and “the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.” This is close to the standard that existed for Park Police before Trump pushed for a change. Notably, a 2021 study in Virginia “found no evidence suggesting that reducing the likelihood of pursuits generates an increase in criminal activity.”

In light of this data, there has “been a several decadeslong trend in tightening pursuit policies.” The Trump administration’s policy allowing for more police chases is an aberration.

Suspects released from custody without charges

Initially, the 24-year-old driver of the car that killed Meza was charged with second-degree murder and the two passengers, a 19-year-old and a juvenile, were charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle. The car, a Honda Accord, had allegedly been stolen.

But the charges against the two adult men were dropped and they were both released from custody. (The status of the charge against the juvenile is unclear.) The U.S. Attorney’s office said it did not yet have enough information to make a charging decision. It is possible that charges against the men could be refiled later.

“[Nolberto] left here with dreams, goals, not for his life to be taken away in that way because I feel like this is not fair,” Marlin Meza, Nolberto’s sister, said. “I want justice for my brother.”