An Arkansas woman recently filed a lawsuit against the State Police and one of its officers for a “negligently performed” Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT) putting her life at risk.
Nicole Harper— who was pregnant at the time of the incident in 2020, was reportedly driving at 84 mph in a 70-mph zone near Jacksonville—noticed a police car behind her, signaling her to pull over. In keeping with the Arkansas Driver License Study Guide, Harper slowed down to find a decent spot to pull over. But, things turned untoward after officer Rodney Dunn’s reckless act led to him crashing the pregnant mother's back left bumper, sending her car crashing into a concrete barrier and flipping over, causing the red SUV to bang left and smash into a road divider and flip onto its roof.
As seen in the dashcam footage, Harper is spotted screaming out that she’s pregnant as smoke oozes out of the car. To which, officer Dunn reportedly told Harper that the accident was entirely her doing because she did not stop fast enough. The police, however, alleged that Harper was attempting to “flee” the officer and was being a danger to the others on the road. Dunn also charged Harper with failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, according to Laudible.
The lawsuit filed stated that the woman “was unable to safely stop her vehicle on the right or left shoulder due to concrete barriers and a reduced shoulder being on both sides of the road… leaving [her] with no room to safely pull over her car.”
Harper shot back claiming that Dunn was prepared to maneuver correctly and failed to check who was inside the car before attempting the PTI technique, reported Fox News. Her attorney is trying to offer some respite to Harper on the grounds of how Dunn “reportedly chose to a deadly force against a pregnant woman who was in the process of looking for a safe place to stop”.
Arkansas State Police force operates under the 2016 law code, which prevents police officers from having any personal responsibilities when they're working and grants them immunity from allegations of a similar nature.
