Dashcam video shows high-speed chase of three teens, multiple PIT maneuvers on South Florida highway

It was an unusually action-packed scene for a Tuesday morning rush hour: A Florida Highway Patrol trooper chasing three teens in a SUV going over 120 miles per hour, PIT-maneuvering it multiple times and following it as it drove onto the grassy shoulder of a highway in Broward before another crash forced it to a stop, newly released dashcam video shows.

“Get on the ground now. Get on the ground NOW!” the trooper yelled as the occupants finally emerged from the silver Kia SUV, their hands raised.

The teens, a 17-year-old driver and two 15-year-old passengers, were arrested on May 21 and charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, fleeing and eluding, possession of ID cards and possession of a firearm.

The chase came amid heightened scrutiny over police pursuits and weeks after the Florida Highway Patrol loosened its own pursuit policy, which now leaves it up to the troopers themselves to decide whether to pursue a vehicle, more lax than several other law enforcement agencies’. However, pursuing the teens would have been allowed under the previous policy, officials say.

“This pursuit would have been allowed prior to the most recent policy change,” Lt. Jim Beauford, a spokesperson for FHP, said in an email. “Any vehicle that the Florida Highway Patrol pursues has already committed at least one felony in the trooper’s presence.”

The chase began on Interstate 75 in Broward County, near Mile Marker 36. A trooper was in the northbound lanes, watching the cars going southbound using an opposite moving radar, according to a probable cause affidavit. When he clocked a silver SUV going 107 mph, he turned on his siren and lights, drove through the grassy median to the opposite side of the highway, and began to pursue the SUV southbound, the footage shows.

The trooper accelerated rapidly to catch up to the SUV as it passed trucks and other cars. The SUV switched into the right lane, quickly approaching a truck, and he followed. Then he switched lanes again, his car almost next to the SUV in the left lane. Unable to switch lanes, the teens appeared to drive onto the shoulder to avoid slowing down or colliding with the truck before returning to the highway.

The chase continued. The teens again drove the SUV onto the shoulder, footage shows, whizzing past trucks and other cars. The trooper entered the shoulder and began to follow closely behind.

When the SUV swerved back into the right lane, the trooper “PIT-maneuvered” it, hitting its left side and sending it spinning to face the opposite direction of the highway, according to the footage. A PIT maneuver, or precision immobilization technique, is a controversial police tactic used to force a vehicle to rotate sideways and stop.

The teens then began driving in the grass of the median between the northbound and southbound lanes, returned to the highway, and PIT-maneuvered them again. The SUV turned into the grass next to the highway, again facing the opposite direction. The trooper turned around and PIT-maneuvered the SUV one more time. Finally, the teens emerged from the car with their hands up.

“Why you running?” a trooper asked, according to the footage. “Why are you guys running, I’m behind you going 121 miles an hour! You know I’m behind you.”

“It was just a simple ticket,” he continued. “A simple ticket.”

It turned out it would not have been a simple ticket, however. When the trooper searched the teens and the SUV, he found screw drivers, multiple credit cards and IDs, and a handgun, according to the probable cause affidavit, but no car key. The car had been reported stolen out of Collier County.

The footage and probable cause affidavit suggest that the trooper didn’t know that the vehicle was stolen when he began the pursuit. But the teens chose to flee rather than pull over, a third-degree felony that justifies the chase under FHP’s previous policy, which had permitted chases in cases of reckless driving, DUIs, or felonies; fleeing a law enforcement officer is considered reckless driving.

Still, police pursuits have been heavily scrutinized in general in recent years following several deaths. A 2023 report by the Police Executive Research Forum recommended against pursuits unless “a violent crime has been committed and the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.” PIT maneuvers are a particularly controversial police practice that has gone largely unstudied, according to the report.

“In the past 20 years, the pendulum has swung in both directions on pursuits. Some department leaders had allowed pursuits for car thefts because everyone involved in car thefts wouldn’t stop when they were approached by officers,” one of the authors, Geoffrey Alpert, told the Associated Press. “But that’s property. You may get the car back, but what difference does that make compared to losing a life?”

According to FHP’s pursuit policy, PIT maneuvers are “the primary technique employed by the Division to terminate a pursuit and reduce the danger to the public created by the fleeing violator.”

But the Research Forum report states that “no comprehensive research studies” have answered important questions about the maneuver, including the speed at which it creates “the likelihood of serious injury or death.”

“Until there is research-backed evidence defining the parameters within which PIT maneuvers can be employed safely and effectively, this guide cannot without serious reservation endorse their use,” the report says.

Beauford did not respond to questions Wednesday over the use of the tactic.