On the afternoon of May 2, Arkansas State Police Trooper Teddy Henderson clocked a red Dodge Charger doing 80 mph in a 55 mph zone on State Highway 118 near the small town of Joiner in Mississippi County. He activated his lights. The driver, Thalia Jones, aged 23, hit the accelerator instead.
What followed was a pursuit through rural roads that ended when the trooper executed a Tactical Vehicle Intervention, placing his front bumper against the centre of the Charger's rear bumper and accelerating to the right. Jones lost control. The car ran over a sign and a mailbox, slid across the roadway and flipped onto its roof in a field.
The trooper held the overturned vehicle at gunpoint and waited for backup. Then a voice came from inside the wreck.
"My baby's coming out first."
A door opened. A boy of three climbed out and ran toward the officer.
"You're okay, come right here baby, come right here."
Jones crawled out shortly after. Both were medically cleared at the scene. The boy was released to another adult. When Jones explained to the trooper that she ran because she didn't have a licence, he did not take it well.
"You ran from me 'cos you don't have a license? You almost killed your kid, do you understand me. You could have killed your child. That was the stupidest thing you've ever done in your life."
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Jones was arrested and charged with speeding, reckless driving, driving with a suspended licence, child endangerment in the first degree, and unauthorised use of another person's vehicle to commit a crime. That last charge arose because the Charger belonged to her boyfriend, not her. Arkansas State Police also notified the state's Child Abuse Hotline following the incident. The criminal charges will not be the end of it.
The dashcam footage went viral almost immediately after Arkansas State Police released it. It is not hard to see why. The sequence of a child emerging from a car resting on its roof, walking unharmed toward a trooper with weapon drawn, is the kind of image that cuts through a news cycle. The trooper's voice, calm and quiet when he speaks to the boy, then barely contained fury when he turns to the mother, does a lot of the editorial work on its own.
A suspended licence. An 80 mph sprint. A child in the back seat with no say in any of it.
Sources
- Arkansas State Police incident report via KARK — 3-year-old walks away from rollover crash during Arkansas State Police pursuit
- KATV (ABC Arkansas) — VIDEO: Toddler walks away from rollover crash; mom arrested
- TMZ — Watch Arkansas Mom's Wild Police Chase With Child Inside, on Dashcam Video
- NBC DFW — 'Stupidest thing I've ever seen': Video shows toddler escaping overturned car following mom's police chase
- Fox Carolina / KXII — Video shows toddler emerging from overturned car after trooper pursuit crash
