Arkansas father rushing his sick child to hospital won’t face charges after officer rammed into his car

An Arkansas father speeding while transporting his sick child to the hospital will not face charges after a state police trooper used a vehicle-ramming technique known as a Pit maneuvre to stop his vehicle, authorities have said.Officials said they have ruled out charges against the father, identified as Dillon Hess, who was speeding as he rushed his son to the hospital for emergency medical treatment after he suffered an allergic reaction, as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first reported.The Arkansas state police said their trooper, Amber Cass, was unaware of the emergency afflicting Hess’ son. And the agency’s director, Col Mike Hagar, said in a news release that the case “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”.Cass encountered Hess as he drove his Jeep Cherokee on interstate 630 near downtown Little Rock – the capital of Arkansas – on 20 February, state police said. Hess’s wife, Kristen, and his sons, ages one and three, were passengers in the vehicle. The sick child was later taken to hospital by ambulance.Video showed how Cass’s patrol cruiser struck Hess’s side fender after reaching a speed of 70mph in a 60mph zone. The contact spun his Jeep out. She then used her cruiser to pin the Jeep – which had its hazard lights on – against a concrete barrier in the highway’s median.Hess at that point got out of the Jeep, and Cass can be seen in a window reflection approaching him with her service pistol drawn.“You gotta stop – you can’t keep driving,” Cass can be heard saying on the video as she cuffs him. She tells him he could have gotten to the hospital quicker if he had stopped. “Now you’ve got a felony charge,” Cass says.State police spokesperson Nick Genty said that drivers taking people to hospital in an emergency should always call 911, inform the dispatcher, and identify their vehicle, destination and route.In Cass’s report, she explained that her decision to intentionally spin Hess’s vehicle out resulted from not knowing his intentions. She also noted that he was approaching an area with heavier traffic.“Fleeing in a vehicle is viewed as an inherently dangerous crime (by the courts) regardless of the speeds involved,” Cass wrote in the report.The maneuver that Cass used is known as a tactical vehicle intervention. Also called the precision immobilization technique (Pit), involves nudging the rear of a vehicle in police pursuits to one side, causing it to turn sideways.It is often the highpoint of police pursuits, filmed by news helicopters, that local TV stations turn to, along with expert commentary on the technique – and its advisability in built-up neighborhoods and at what speed.This is the second time so far this year that Arkansas state police have been required to explain a trooper’s use of the Pit technique. After the previous incident, a trooper was fired for ramming the wrong car, itself a repeat of a 2023 incident.The Democrat-Gazette reported that state troopers were involved in 432 pursuits in 2025, down from 553 in 2024 and 620 in 2023. But, the outlet reported, Pit maneuvres are up, with rammings used 225 times last year – or in 52% of chases, up from 29% prior to 2023.The state’s office of professional standards is now conducting an investigation into Cass’s actions.