- A Virginia State Trooper smoking a cigar had to chase down a suspect.
- He then spent several minutes weaving through traffic at triple-digit speeds.
- Even after the chase ended, he demonstrated an exceptionally calm head.
Being a police officer isn’t an easy job. It’s unknown what or whom one will face each day and how things might turn out. For one Virginia State Trooper, that meant leaving behind a cigar mid-chase to make sure they caught a suspect. It might not seem like not a big deal, but it’s the officer’s behavior during the whole shebang that really stands out.
This incident appears to come from back in May of 2024. In a dashcam video from a Virginia State Patrol car, we see an officer casually enjoying a cigar as they drive through traffic at high speed. As they approach a Dodge Charger in the left lane, they turn on their emergency lights to begin a traffic stop. Later, we’ll hear him say that he decided to do so because the suspect was doing over 90 mph (144 km/h) in a 50 mph (80 km/h) zone.
Read: Driver Stops Suspected Drunk Motorist And Calls Cops; Guess Who Was Slapped With A DUI?
Within a few minutes, the officer and the Charger are darting through traffic at what the officer says is 120 (193 km/h) to 130 mph (209 km/h). These same speeds continue throughout most of the chase. On top of that, almost all of the highway covered by these two drivers has light traffic on it. So the two are weaving in and out of cars the entire time. For a moment, it even appears that the fleeing Charger might get away.
They put a considerable gap on the officer but fail to maintain it. At one point, they try another trick, stopping altogether only to restart the chase. We’ve seen that work in the past as some police cars can struggle to keep up in what equates to an old-school drag race. Here though, it didn’t pay dividends.
Officers never lose sight of the suspect and, when additional units arrive to help out, the Dodge driver gives up. In other states like Georgia or Arkansas, it’s commonplace to see officers use their own cars as a ramming weapon to stop suspects when they finally catch up – but that wasn’t the case here.
In fact, none of the Virginia officers even touch the Dodge. When they do get out and draw their guns, they communicate effectively with the suspect, who obeys their commands to exit the vehicle. Despite the adrenaline that must be flowing in such a moment, the troopers carefully extract the suspect and calmly place him under arrest. According to the video description, he’s now facing several felony charges as a result of the high-speed chase.