Arkansas Cops PIT Car, Charge Driver With Fleeing, For Going To Hospital
Cops love a PIT maneuver, huh? Particularly in Arkansas, it seems, where just two years ago a state trooper flipped a pregnant woman’s car as she searched for a safe place to pull over. Now those same Arkansas state police are back at it, nearly rolling another crossover for speeding as it rushed to a nearby hospital — and charging the 18-year-old driver with a felony.
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This past Friday, Arkansas resident Tahirah Hart began feeling tightness and pain in her chest — concerning symptoms just days after surgery. Fearing a heart attack, Hart asked her daughters Kenochia and Keochia to drive her to the hospital. Dashcam footage from Arkansas state police shows how well the journey went.
Teen driver faces felony after speeding mom to emergency room
The video shows a Mazda crossover, driven by Kenochia, exiting the highway onto hospital grounds with its hazard lights illuminated. While those lights alone should have informed pursuing officer Montae Hernandez that the situation was an emergency, the trooper had more information to work with: The crossover had taken a highway exit that directly leads to Little Rock’s Baptist hospital.
Rather than following the Mazda to the emergency department, and following up with the driver there, Hernandez instead PIT maneuvered the crossover on the highway off-ramp. The video shows the Mazda leaning heavily to one side, though it fortunately did not flip from the impact. Kenochia was then handcuffed and charged with misdemeanor fleeing, as her mother — still fearing a heart attack — looked on from inside the car. She was eventually uncuffed and allowed to continue the emergency drive.
A local ABC affiliate spoke with state troopers about the PIT maneuver, which the department claimed was justified:
7OYS confirmed with state police that the trooper’s use of force was reviewed internally and justified.
We asked what a driver should do in this instance and ASP spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said: “Any medical emergency that would warrant high rates of speed necessitates calling an ambulance or dialing 911.”
Calling 911, however, likely wasn’t an option. The Little Rock 911 system is known among residents for its lack of response, with locals complaining that calls to the emergency line simply ring on without end — often taking 20 minutes before a dispatcher can even be reached. That’s far too much time to wait in an emergency situation, where every second counts.
Perhaps it’s time for the Arkansas state police to relax a bit with those PIT maneuvers. Or maybe, just maybe, they could cool it with traffic stops as a whole — and make us all safer for it.
