Arkansas State Police are well-known for their propensity to PIT vehicles in all sorts of situations. In a recently uncovered case, they end up looking like the good guys, the bad guys, and then the good guys again. Here’s a breakdown of one chase gone wrong and what happens when officers realize that there’s a medical emergency going on.
According to the description in the video below, ARP Trooper Hernandez is finishing up a traffic stop as the film begins. We can hear him in the audio giving the stopped driver a break just before the two parties pull back onto the road. As that’s happening a Mazda SUV flies by both at a high rate of speed.
While it does have its flashers on, it doesn’t have any other lights on and police were already in pursuit. Trooper Hernandez believed that the local police department had signaled him to take over the chase. Less than a minute later he uses a PIT maneuver to stop the Mazda.
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Immediately the driver can be heard screaming at officers to “Please help my momma.” Some of the details of the mother’s condition are deleted from the audio record but it’s clear that officers understood something was wrong. “I just thought yall was trying to help me through traffic,” pleads the driver before they release her from her handcuffs and direct her to the emergency room.
The officer explains the situation to dispatch and then helps the driver to get the car running again before the group heads to the ER. There’s no word on the condition of the mother involved or if the driver ended up with any citations or charges related to the incident.
Clearly, there were a lot of unknown factors here. It seems as though the ASP officer didn’t have any clear communication with the other department before initiating the PIT. Neither seemed to understand what was going on and that, in part, could’ve been mitigated if the driver or her coherent passenger had called 911 before the PIT. We hope everyone made it home safely.