Arkansas State Police were filmed jumping a Dodge Charger cruiser at more than 100 mph last month during a traffic stop turned car chase. The officers almost hit a telephone pole and finally stopped when they realized they’d badly damaged their cruiser in the chase, begging the question: what was it all for?
On October 15, state trooper Jackson Shumate pulled over a Dodge Charger driver in Arkansas, reports CarScoops. The driver stopped, but then fled the scene once Shumate was out of his cruiser.
The officer jumped back in their car and sped after the driver. In the process, they launched their police-issued Dodge Charger over a speed hump at almost 100 mph, according to dashcam footage of the chase shared online. The car came clattering back down to earth after the jump, almost hitting a telephone pole and doing some serious damage to the cruiser in the process.
At no point in the video, which you can see for yourself above, does Shumate get anywhere near the car they’re chasing despite hitting speeds that were well in excess of the posted limit. Ultimately, the driver got away, as CarScoops adds:
Shumate audibly reacts and barely avoids hitting a telephone pole. Shortly thereafter, he realizes he has a problem. “It’s got quite a gap on me, I think I broke my oil pan,” Shumate says. According to the video description, the suspect did indeed get away. This is far from the only case where it seems that suspects evade capture while ASP drives at double or even triple the speed limit to catch them.
The perp got away, the car was badly damaged leaving law enforcement with a costly repair bill and the lives of other road users were put at risk by the 100-mile-an-hour-chase. So really, what was the point?
America is awash with stories of high speed police chases, whether it’s cops chasing drivers evading traffic stops like this, or officers pursuing potentially stolen cars in reverse down busy highways. Rarely do these kinds of stories end in a successful arrest, and instead they often result in excessive property damage and even the death of innocent bystanders.
The Department of Transportation reports that there are roughly 250,000 high speed chases in the U.S. every year and between 6,000 and 8,000 of those end in crashes, reports the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
If it’s just the police car that’s damaged in the crash, the bill for taxpayers is already eye-watering. Officers in Arkansas recently got approval for a $5.8 million purchase of 150 new cars for its officers, which puts each vehicle in the new fleet at around $40,000. You write off 6,000 Dodge Charger police cruisers and you’re looking at a bill of $240 million to replace them.
Then there’s the damage to private property that can occur. A 2022 report from Pennsylvania Police found that the average damage per high-speed chase amounted to roughly $404 for the police, $774 for the violators and a ridiculous $913 for uninvolved people.
On top of that, innocent bystanders could find themselves on the receiving end of a hefty medical bill as well, as Florida police add that close to 5,000 people pick up injuries in police chases every year. That’s before you get to the one in 500 chases that tragically lead to the death of a person.
There has to be a better way to ticket a speeding driver than this current campaign of death and destruction.