This story has been updated with information about the children involved.
We’re only two months into 2026, and state troopers have already run two children off the road.
The Arkansas State Police sent word Friday that on the morning of Friday, Feb. 20, a trooper rammed his patrol car into a vehicle that had failed to pull over for an attempted traffic stop on Interstate 630 in downtown Little Rock.
Turns out the driver had good reason.
From the Arkansas State Police release:
“The Trooper did not know that a child in the vehicle was having a medical emergency and that the driver of the vehicle was a parent transporting the child to a nearby hospital.
The Trooper immediately called for an ambulance, which took the child to the hospital for treatment.”
An email to the Arkansas State Police seeking the age and condition of the child did not get an immediate response, but the press release said no one was injured in the crash.
Update: There were actually two children in the car. Arkansas State Police spokesperson Cindy Murphy said they’re both boys, one age 3 1/2 and one 15 months. “I understand the child was treated and released,” Murphy said.
This is far from the first time Arkansas State Police have attracted scrutiny for using PIT maneuvers — controlled-crashes that entail an officer nudging his or her own car into the rear side of a target vehicle, causing it to spin out — to catch speeding or fleeing cars.
The Feb. 20 incident brings to mind a similar one from 2023, when an 18-year-old driver rushing her mother to Baptist Hospital in Little Rock was PIT-maneuvered. That teen driver was charged with fleeing law enforcement.
The parent who got PIT-maneuvered last week, however, will not face any criminal charges.
“Knowing all we do now, we agree with the prosecutor’s decision to drop all charges against the driver,” Arkansas State Police Director Mike Hagar said in the press release. “This incident underscores the importance of communication when it’s necessary to transport someone having a medical emergency in a private vehicle, which occurs with regularity across Arkansas.”
Law enforcement’s use of PIT maneuvers results in lots of deaths and injuries, including of passengers, troopers and innocent bystanders. Some forces limit the use of PIT maneuvers or bar the practice entirely; others allow them only at speeds up to 35 mph.
The Arkansas State Police is sticking with PITs, but has tried to change up the lingo, referring to their crash-now-ask-questions-later move as “Tactical Vehicle Intervention,” or TVI, instead.
PIT, TVI, whatever you call it, the practice is always dangerous, often deadly, and is sometimes even used on the wrong cars.
An Arkansas State Trooper lost his job in January after ramming his vehicle into a completely innocent driver in a case of mistaken identity. That PIT maneuver also happened on Interstate 630 in Little Rock, and it also happened to involve a child. While the Arkansas State Police did not initially disclose it, reporting by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed a 9-year-old was in the car that the officer rammed into after mistaking it for someone else.
Another Arkansas State Police trooper retired in 2023 after making a similar mistake of PIT-maneuvering the wrong vehicle.
A Washington Post investigation published in August 2020 noted that the victims killed or injured in PIT maneuvers aren’t always drivers fleeing law enforcement. The Post’s investigation counted 30 deaths and hundreds of injuries over three and a half years.
“Out of those deaths, 18 came after officers attempted to stop vehicles for minor traffic violations such as speeding. In eight cases, police were pursuing a stolen car, and in two, drivers were suspected of serious felonies. Two other drivers had been reported as suicidal.
Ten of the 30 killed were passengers in the fleeing vehicles; four were bystanders or the victim of a crime.”
Arkansas State Police killed eight people by PIT maneuver between 2017 and the summer of 2024, with three of those deaths coming in a single three-month span in 2023. Still, State Police have resisted pressure to abandon the practice.
At a February 2025 press conference, Hagar doubled down, warning drivers that his troopers will chase them and crash into them if they flee.
In Arkansas, fleeing from an officer is a class-A misdemeanor that can land you with two days in jail. Speeding while fleeing bumps it up to a class-D felony, punishable by up to six years in prison. If you substantially threaten the lives of others, it is a class-C felony punishably by up to 20 years in prison.
Of course, if you get PIT-maneuvered, fleeing could mean an instant death penalty, for you, your passengers, or innocent bystanders.
“We will do what is safest for the public and that’s why we’ve instructed them [state troopers] that as soon as you can articulate the suspect is fleeing, put them in the ditch,” Hagar said at that 2025 press conference.
Hagar also shared numbers showing that troopers are giving chase more often now. State troopers chased 553 vehicles in 2024, compared to 74 chases in 2017, he said. The 2024 pursuits led to the deaths of three suspects and three civilians. Nine civilians, 14 troopers and 83 suspects were injured in these pursuits.
