WASHINGTON – Just as the sun was rising on April 10 at Fort Smith, Arkansas, 34-year-old Justin Battenfield ran a red light in the black Dodge Ram pickup he had purchased a few days earlier.
For reasons that will never be known, Battenfield, who lived on social security payments due to a mental disability, refused to stop when an officer from the U.S. Forest Service tried to lure him over.
It was a decision that cost him his life.
A high-speed chase ensued, and Battenfield began to weave in and out of traffic when an Arkansas State Police trooper grabbed the pursuit, the trooper’s dash cam video shows.
Commanded to stop the truck, the trooper deliberately stunned the truck at a speed of 109 miles per hour, using what is known as a Precision Immobilization Technique, or PIT.
What happened next was predictable, experts say. The truck rolled and rolled, and Battenfield was killed in the crash.
He was one of at least 30 people who have died since 2016 when police carried out the PIT maneuver to stop a fleeing car, according to a year-long Washington Post investigation that appeared on NBC Nightly News last night.
By fighting news reports and public records, the Post also found hundreds of people injured while police used the PIT. But the actual number of deaths and injuries is not known, as there is no federal requirement for police departments to follow suit.
Eighteen of the dead came after drivers were suspected of minor traffic violations, such as speeding, the Post found. Ten killed were passengers and four were bystanders.
About half of the people who died were minorities: nine Blacks, four Hispanics and one Native American.
Experts consulted by the Post and NBC News say the PIT maneuver can be relatively safe and predictable at speeds below 35 miles per hour, but is growing increasingly dangerous at higher speeds. Experts say it is also more dangerous when used against cars with higher gravity centers such as SUVs, trucks and minivans, because they are more flippable.
“When used properly, a PIT is a good, safe maneuver,” Geoff Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina, told NBC News. “And if used incorrectly, at high speeds, in the wrong area, against the wrong car, it is deadly.”
A Arkansas State Police spokesman defended his agency’s actions to local media after the crash.
“PIT has been used by the Arkansas State Police for no less than the last 18-20 years and continues to be used by state troops, especially when innocent lives are threatened, as was the case with the Fort Smith incident,” said spokesman Bill Sadler at the time. .
Sadler did not respond Friday to requests for comment from NBC News.
Linda Hamm, a close family friend who helped raise Justin Battenfield, asked him why the police could not stop him with less violent means – or why they did not simply interrupt the pursuit and later arrest him.
A temporary license plate on the new truck stood in Battenfield’s name, she said.
“I do not believe it should have happened,” she said. “They had enough chances to stop him before he got back in town. … I’m very upset about it. I just do not understand why they do that speeding.”
The PIT maneuver was developed decades ago for police in Fairfax County, Virginia, police say there. Officers give NBC News a demonstration on its track in Chantilly, at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC
Lt. Jay Jackson, who oversees the training, said Fairfax County police conduct the PIT about thirteen times a year, and no one has been seriously injured.
“It all comes down to training,” he said. “Here in Fairfax County, we do extensive training on the PIT maneuver. They have to do eight successful PITs to become self-certified.”
The county also has policies that connect chases of juvenile offenders at high speeds, meaning the PIT would probably not be used on someone who ran a red light, Jackson said.
Some departments, including New York City police, have banned the PIT, while others, such as the LAPD, have banned it at speeds of more than 35 miles per hour.
But at least 30 major police agencies allow the technique at any rate, the Washington Post found.
That was the policy of the North Carolina State Police in 2017, when a group of teens walked away from a state poacher who tried to pull over their minivan.
The trooper crashed the car at one hundred miles per hour. It clad and rolled and all four toes were thrown out
Two girls, ages 15 and 16, were killed.
Jonathan Thomas received a broken neck. The last thing he remembers before the crash is holding his girlfriend, Maria Lopez, who died.
“There is no justification in taking 2 lives and almost 3,” he said.
The trooper was not charged, police said. North Carolina has introduced a new policy that bans the PIT from more than 55 miles per hour.
