By Steven Symes 
Street takeovers or sideshows, as some call them, have become a scourge on society. Many cities have struggled to keep them under control, which we would consider complete annihilation of the illegal activity, while others have gone hard against participants. Then there’s this Arkansas trooper who decides to really stick it to a fleeing Dodge Charger Scat Pack as he approaches a takeover event.
Two teenagers shot at a recent Los Angeles street takeover.
You see in the beginning of the trooper’s dashcam footage the takeover is anything but subtle with plenty of tire smoke, people, and of course fireworks being shot into the air. It’s almost like the takeover crowd thinks they can act with impunity, like law enforcement will just kowtow to their illegal behavior.
But this isn’t happening in Los Angeles, San Franciso, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, etc. This is in Little Rock, Arkansas. The local police might have some limits on what they can do, but Arkansas State Police give its troopers long leashes.
This trooper decides to come in hot. When he sees the one suspect fleeing at high speed coming right towards him, he does what few would dare: a TVI.
That’s right, instead of a good ol’ fashioned PIT maneuver, which wouldn’t even work in this scenario, the trooper puts the front driver-side corner of his push bar right into the front driver-side corner of the fleeing Mopar muscle car.
It’s a brutal hit, like watching a linebacker lay out a quarterback from the blindside. As the trooper turns his cruiser around, the extra rattling and jerkiness of the ride indicate it’s damaged. But it had some protection from the push bar, while the Scat Pack didn’t.
The TVI was super effective because we see the suspect who was hauling out of there is pulled into a parking lot, hazards on. The trooper is able to take the driver and passenger into custody, but the people from the takeover came over and started shooting fireworks at him.
This is why cities need to crack down on these illegal gatherings. If this sort of thing was basically guaranteed every time a takeover was held, and prosecutors threw the book at suspects, cities would see an end to this nonsense in short order.
Image via Police Pursuits/YouTube
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