With the holiday travel season getting underway, the Arkansas State Police this week released a video warning drivers to "be smart" and pull over if they see police lights behind them and not to flee, which will likely result in a felony charge and could lead troopers who "will not look the other way" to force the vehicle to stop.
The 42-second spot highlights Act 734, passed in April, which makes speeding while fleeing from police a felony offense, and draws a comparison between those who choose to flee at high speeds and active shooters.
Although it doesn't mention it, the video also comes as an increasing number of pursuits by state troopers have ended with the suspect's vehicle being rammed by the trooper in what's known as a "tactical vehicle intervention" -- a tactic that state police director Col. Mike Hagar has defended.
"Anyone would be outraged if a police officer looked the other way during an active shooter situation," Hagar, who is also secretary of the state Department of Public Safety, says in the video released Tuesday. "Hoping the shooter is a bad shot is a bad strategy. When someone flees from law enforcement, it's like they're driving a bullet down the road."
The video, which was posted on state police social media accounts, included police dash camera footage of speeding drivers running red lights and colliding with other motorists, as well as a clip of a state trooper making an arrest at gunpoint.
In a news release published in tandem with the video, Hagar said troopers refuse to simply follow fleeing motorists on "a high-speed parade" and hope that they won't hit another driver.
In September, Hagar used the same "high-speed parade" and active shooter comparisons in explaining why videos released of tactical vehicle interventions often show troopers ramming fleeing vehicles less than a minute after a chase starts.
"We tell our guys, 'As soon as you can articulate they are fleeing, stop it,' because that's the safest thing for the public," Hagar said at the time. "It's not the safest thing for the suspect, and it's not the safest thing for the trooper, but it's the safest thing for the public. So that's what we tell them to do and that's what we expect them to do."
Troopers will always place the safety of other motorists above the safety of fleeing drivers, Hagar said in the news release.
Hagar explained in September that the term tactical vehicle intervention includes the "precision immobilization technique," or PIT, maneuver, which involves ramming the rear wheel of a fleeing vehicle to spin it out of control.
However, he said a textbook PIT may not always be possible, and troopers are instructed to spin a fleeing vehicle out or ram it off the road by any means necessary.
A tactical vehicle intervention can be dangerous for both the fleeing suspect and the troopers involved. So far this year, three people have been killed while fleeing police by troopers using the maneuver, state police said. In at least one of those incidents, a trooper was also hurt when the suspect's vehicle collided with another vehicle after being rammed.
Last year, three people were killed in pursuits by troopers, state police data shows, up from none in 2021. The state reported two fatalities from pursuits in 2020, one in 2019, none in 2018 and two in 2017.
State police ramming tactics have also drawn criticism in some instances.
In June, a trooper spun out an SUV near Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, where the driver told police and news station KATV she was taking her mother, who was experiencing chest pain.
The state police defended the trooper's actions in that case, saying the driver was fleeing at speeds up to 115 mph and should have pulled over.
In September, another trooper resigned after he rammed the wrong vehicle during a pursuit on Interstate 40 in St. Francis County.
In recent years, state police have said that growing numbers of pursuits at consistently higher speeds have led to increased use of forced stop techniques like the tactical vehicle interventions.
By the end of October, state police recorded 513 pursuits, about 33% percent of which occurred in the Troop A patrol area that includes Pulaski, Saline, Lonoke and Faulkner counties.
That was higher than the 464 pursuits reported by the end of last October, the 493 reported by that date in 2021, and the 480 reported by the end of October 2020, data shows.
Troopers used a tactical vehicle intervention in 202, or about 39%, of the pursuits through October of this year, data shows. Already, that means that tactical vehicle interventions have been used more times this year than any year since 2016. In fact, state troopers have used the maneuver more this year than in 2017, 2018 and 2019 combined.
If pursuits and use of tactical vehicle interventions continues at the same rate for the rest of the year, 2023 will mark the highest rate of tactical vehicle intervention use compared to reported pursuits on record since 2016.
It's possible, however, that state police warnings against fleeing, or their use of the tactical vehicle interventions, is having some effect on motorists. By the end of October, 20% of pursuits ended in the driver surrendering to troopers, the highest rate of surrenders on record since 2016.
State police leaders have been adamant that the use of these forced stop maneuvers is the best tool they have against motorists who refuse to stop and run from troopers at high speeds. They don't have any choice but to stop them by force, Hagar said in September.
"Fleeing from law enforcement is a selfish act," Hagar said in the release on Tuesday. "And in Arkansas, it's a felony. A felony charge is something that no one wants on their record. It is just absolutely not worth it."