There they were, late Tuesday morning, two young working moms on their way to lunch, in a car at a stoplight on Albuquerque's west side, when a van driven by a fleeing bank robber, went out of control and crashed into them. Jeremiah Jackson, slightly injured, ran away — but police, already in hot pursuit, chased him down; they got their man.

But not before Jackson killed Kimberly Aragón-Nuñez at the scene and mortally injured Janice Flores; she died in a hospital. Kim, a Pojoaque High School grad who went on to earn a college degree, was the daughter of Pete and Joyce Aragón, and the wife of Noel Nuñez.

Two tragic deaths — reminders that life is fleeting, and to be cherished, as the smiling, singing Mrs. Nuñez did.

Compounding the tragedy are a couple of things: Our justice system failed to revoke Jackson's probation last week. There was cause — but a state judge took no action on it, instead, the Albuquerque Journal reports, continuing his probation.

So he robbed a bank on the city's east side, the amount still undisclosed — and police pursued him at high speed onto I-40. He turned off at Coors, and seconds later tore into Aragón-Nuñez's car.

The police had no way of knowing that their chase would lead to the young women's deaths — yet surely they, their department and law-enforcement agencies everywhere realize the risks of high-speed pursuit.

Whoever they're chasing, speeders or the likes of Jeremiah Jackson, police should know better than anyone that the danger to the public goes up exponentially with the speedometer needle. The person being pursued now is wielding a dangerous wheeled weapon, as Northern New Mexicans also have learned to our sorrow.

Officers must be given broad discretion — yet just as their departments demand caution in pulling and firing their weapons, there's got to be a high standard of care when gassing their vehicles.

Can't a backup car intercept the suspect? Can't a roadblock be made, or spike strips be laid in the fugitive's path? Maybe not in this case. But if the officer has the license number of the car in question, wouldn't it make more sense to end the chase and track down the vehicle later on? Maybe not; maybe the van was stolen. But is the eventual outcome of the case worth a ton and a half of metal in untrained hands hurtling down streets and highways?

According to some law-enforcement figures, perhaps outdated now that many police forces have responded to them, death strikes in a high percentage of police pursuits.

Albuquerque police have a policy of pursuing only violent felons; this one arguably comes under that category. Nonetheless, the department, too late as far as the families of these two young ladies are concerned, says it will review its pursuit policy.

It's a tough call: Permission to pursue, in many parts of the country, has resulted in fewer crimes, car thefts especially.

If police departments flatly prohibited pursuit, they'd be telling criminals to step on the gas and take their chances that the officer didn't get their number — or that they could alibi their way out of trouble. Law enforcers, and the justice system they represent, enjoy too little respect as it is.

So it comes down to being reasonable — somewhere between movie-style machismo and letting the bad guy go. Officers should err on the side of catching the bad guy later.

Intense police-academy training in pursuit techniques and philosophy must be urged on law-enforcement leaders — who, we hope, are discussing this case locally, thinking of ways to avoid another such incident and those that struck Santa Fe County a decade ago. Most of all, officers should be reminded to resist urges as old as horse posses — and use common sense.