If you are flying at night without the use of NVD, you are in a DVE and should be flying a mixture of visual and instruments - done plenty of it in the past in singles and twins, including mountain flying and SAR.
Pretty straightforward over hugely lit metro areas but a different beast away from the lights and a clearly defined horizon.
Now add in an unstabilised helicopter and a task to follow a stolen car away from those bright lights - the excitement of the chase, the difficulty of the changing visual cues as you manoeuvre and the handling qualities of the aircraft - this is not big and clever flying, this is asking for a mishap.
Let's not pretend that something like an R44 is chosen for this for any other reason than cost - how much has that accident cost in equipment and, more importantly, lives lost. False economy.
Just because it happened in the 90's doesn't make it safe or sensible nowadays when alternatives are available.