Dashcam video released by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette shows an Arkansas State Police trooper’s ramming maneuver during a 130 mph pursuit forcing a fleeing car into an uninvolved third vehicle, seriously injuring a 68-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man who had nothing to do with the chase.

Key Points

• The pursuit began around 7 p.m. on August 5 when a trooper attempted to stop a Hyundai Sonata for a traffic violation on northbound Interstate 555, according to MySaline’s reporting on the incident.
• The driver, 32-year-old Laloyd L. Hamilton III, refused to stop and accelerated to roughly 130 mph before the trooper executed the maneuver near the interstate’s 28-mile marker.
• The intervention sent Hamilton’s Sonata into an uninvolved third-party vehicle, forcing it to overturn on the shoulder, per the same report.
• The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s own follow-up reporting, headlined around the trooper’s “ramming maneuver,” was built on dashcam footage the paper obtained showing the crash unfold in real time.

What’s Affected

• Both bystanders sustained serious injuries and were transported to Regional One Medical Center in Memphis, according to KATV’s coverage, which first published the dashcam clip.
• Hamilton was evaluated at NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro before being booked into the Poinsett County Detention Center.
• Troopers recovered marijuana, pills and an unidentified liquid from Hamilton’s vehicle after the crash, per MySaline’s report.
• Hamilton faces felony fleeing, second-degree battery, criminal mischief, hazardous driving, DWI and multiple controlled-substance charges.

The dashcam footage below was published by KATV:

The Policy Question the Footage Raises

The crash drew national attention after ABC News picked up the story on August 15, and it reopened a familiar debate around Tactical Vehicle Intervention and PIT-style maneuvers: how fast is too fast to force a fleeing car off the road when other traffic is nearby. At 130 mph, a ramming or PIT maneuver doesn’t just stop the fleeing vehicle cleanly. It can send that car careening in an unpredictable direction, which is what put an elderly couple with no connection to the chase into the hospital.

What Readers Should Know

• Arkansas State Police has not publicly detailed whether the trooper involved faced any internal review over the maneuver as of this writing.
• The underlying pursuit involved a traffic stop, not a violent felony in progress, which is part of what has fueled criticism of the tactic’s use here.
• Drivers who find themselves near a high-speed pursuit are generally advised to pull as far right as possible and stop, rather than attempting to continue past or ahead of the chase.

Dashcam footage has increasingly become the deciding factor in how the public evaluates split-second police tactics, and this case is likely to keep circulating as departments across the country weigh when a ramming maneuver is worth the risk to drivers who never signed up to be part of the chase.