An officer who tried to stop a Mercedes reportedly traveling at triple-digit speeds ended up losing the suspect and likely his car
When police are chasing a suspect, they sometimes use the PIT maneuver to end the chase. Sometimes it works exactly as prescribed, but sometimes things go wrong quite quickly. In this case, it led to the officer crashing into a guardrail before ending up with a dead car on the side of the highway.
The Arkansas State Police video shows an officer exceeding highway speed limits by some margin to catch a Mercedes driver. It takes the police several minutes to catch up and as they do, we see another officer trying to spy on the fleeing suspect. It is unclear how successful that attempt was because the suspect continues to drive.
That’s when the officer comes to the PIT with the dashcam and things go from bad to worse. We have confronted the authorities for what some previously called needlessly dangerous and reckless pursuit tactics. Even the data and third-party police surveillance indicate that pursuits are likely overused. With that in mind, let’s switch gears to discuss why this PIT maneuver likely went wrong.
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The officer and suspect pass a motorist and just before the two reach additional traffic ahead, the officer drifts to the right to initiate the PIT. The contact occurs and within moments the officer is forced to the left, across both lanes, and into the guardrail. Somehow he manages to keep the car pointing in the right direction and then gets back on the road.
The patrol car sustained some damage and the suspect drives away as the Charger limps to the right shoulder, where smoke begins to seep under the hood. During contact with the Mercedes, notice that the Charger almost seems to lurch forward.
It seems likely that instead of making contact with the sedan’s rear three-quarter panel, the officer actually drove the Mercedes wheel-to-wheel. We’ve seen what touching a rolling wheel on the highway can do to unsuspecting drivers’ cars and it would explain just about everything here. The contact would cause the police car’s right front tire to accelerate and drift naturally to the left.
At high speeds it can be so violent that even a trained police officer may not be able to catch the car before it leaves the road – but in this incident that is just speculation. Regardless, the officer was able to avoid serious injuries, but police will have to repair or replace the damaged Dodge.