At 8:28am on 20 February 2026, Dillon Hess was driving his family toward Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. His youngest son, aged one, had suffered an allergic reaction. An EpiPen had been administered. The child was still in distress. Hess, his wife, and their two boys aged three and one were in a Jeep Grand Cherokee on Interstate 630.
Arkansas State Trooper Amber Cass clocked the Jeep at between 70 and 72mph in a 60mph zone. She activated her emergency lights near Exit 3B. Hess turned on his hazard lights, slowed down, and moved to the slow lane. He did not stop. The pursuit continued for approximately a mile and a half to Exit 2B, where Cass executed a PIT maneuver, spinning the Jeep and pinning it against the centre barrier.
Hess was ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint. He was handcuffed while explaining that his son needed hospital treatment. Cass called an ambulance. While processing Hess at the scene, dashcam audio captures her telling him that if he had simply stopped, he could have reached the hospital much faster. She then informed him he now faced a felony charge.
All charges against Hess have since been dropped, including the felony charge of fleeing. The Arkansas State Police Office of Professional Standards is investigating the trooper's actions.
What the Dashcam Shows
The official report from Arkansas State Police characterises the incident as a vehicle failing to stop, bypassing exits, with traffic building ahead, requiring the pursuit to be ended. The dashcam footage tells a more textured story. During the entire chase, the Jeep makes no aggressive manoeuvre. It slows. It moves to the slow lane. Its hazard lights are on throughout. Shortly before the PIT manoeuvre, the driver's window begins to roll down, suggesting Hess was attempting to communicate with the trooper. He was not given the opportunity.
Hess's wife was already on the phone with 911 at the time of the incident. The vehicle had committed no offence beyond travelling 10 to 12mph over the speed limit on an interstate while displaying hazard lights and moving away from traffic.
Arkansas State Police Director Colonel Mike Hagar said in the agency's formal statement: "This incident underscores the importance of communication when it's necessary to transport someone having a medical emergency in a private vehicle, which occurs with regularity across Arkansas." State police spokesman Nick Genty added that drivers transporting medical emergencies should always call 911, identify their vehicle and destination, and that even having done so, drivers should still pull over if an officer attempts to stop them.
Hagar also said, in the same statement, that knowing everything the department now knows, he agrees with the decision to drop all charges. That sentence and the preceding advice to drivers about pulling over appeared in the same press release.
This Is Not an Isolated Incident in Arkansas
The Hess case is the second time in 2026 alone that Arkansas State Police have been required to publicly explain a PIT manoeuvre incident.
In January 2026, a trooper was fired after executing a PIT manoeuvre on the wrong vehicle entirely during a pursuit on the same corridor, Interstate 630. That vehicle contained two passengers including a nine year old child. The driver had done nothing wrong. In 2023, trooper Thomas Hubbard retired after PIT manoeuvring the wrong vehicle during a pursuit on Interstate 40 in West Memphis. Nobody was injured in either of those cases.
The pattern in the data is significant. Arkansas State Police were involved in 432 pursuits in 2025, down from 553 in 2024 and 620 in 2023. The use of the PIT manoeuvre, however, has not followed the same downward trend. Troopers used the tactic 225 times in 2025, representing approximately 52 percent of all chases. Prior to 2023, the technique was used in no more than 29 percent of pursuits even in years with significantly higher total pursuit numbers.
Since 2016, pursuits involving Arkansas State Police have killed 27 people. Nineteen of those deaths have occurred since 2023. The seven deaths recorded in 2025 were the highest in a single year since at least 2016. The rate of PIT manoeuvre use has risen at the same time pursuit frequency has fallen.
The Pregnant Woman on the Rural Highway
The Arkansas pattern predates 2023. In 2020, an incident that went viral nationally involved a pregnant woman whose SUV was PIT manoeuvred after she slowed down and activated her hazard lights while looking for a safe place to stop on a rural highway at night. The manoeuvre flipped her vehicle. She survived and subsequently filed a lawsuit, stating she was attempting to comply safely with the officer's instructions rather than flee.
Arkansas's own driver licensing study guide, at the time, listed using emergency flashers as the recommended action when seeking a safe place to stop after being signalled by police. That version of the guide is no longer available at its original link. The January 2026 edition does not include that guidance.
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The Policy Question
Arkansas State Police leadership has consistently defended the use of PIT manoeuvres on the grounds that fleeing a traffic stop is inherently dangerous and that ending pursuits quickly protects the public. Colonel Hagar has repeated that position in multiple public statements. It is not an unreasonable position in cases involving confirmed violent offenders evading at high speed through dense urban traffic.
It is considerably harder to apply to a vehicle doing 70mph on an interstate with its hazard lights on and its driver's window rolling down, carrying two toddlers, one of whom is in medical distress, while the driver's wife is already on the phone with 911.
The legal framework in Arkansas makes this easier to understand, if no less troubling. Arkansas law treats failure to stop for police as a potentially serious felony regardless of the underlying reason for the original stop. Once a vehicle does not immediately comply, the legal exposure for the driver escalates rapidly. Cass's decision to execute a PIT manoeuvre rather than follow the Jeep the additional distance to the hospital, or note the plates and make contact at a later time given that the vehicle was not reported stolen and a home address is attached to the registration, was consistent with Arkansas State Police policy as written.
That policy produced a situation in which a father with a sick toddler in the back seat was removed from his vehicle at gunpoint and handcuffed on the interstate while his child waited for an ambulance.
No one was physically injured. The child received hospital treatment. Charges were dropped. An investigation is ongoing. The trooper remains on duty pending the outcome.
Sources: Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 27 February 2026, KATV Little Rock, Carscoops, 4 March 2026, Jalopnik. Pursuit and PIT manoeuvre statistics from Arkansas State Police records via Arkansas Democrat Gazette. All direct quotes from Arkansas State Police official statements and dashcam audio as reported by Arkansas Democrat Gazette. All analysis and editorial commentary is original.
