Video shows toddler escaping overturned car following mom's police chase: Watch
"You almost killed your kid, do you understand me?" the trooper is heard saying in dash-cam footage.
by Julia Elbaba · 5 NBCDFWA video shows the moment a toddler escaped an overturned vehicle after his mother allegedly led Arkansas State Police on a chase that ended with the car flipping onto its roof.
The dash‑cam recording captured in rural Joiner, Arkansas, appears to show a Dodge Charger failing to stop for an Arkansas State Police trooper. After several minutes, the trooper executes the precision immobilization technique, causing the vehicle to leave the roadway and roll across the grass before coming to rest upside down.
The driver was later identified as 23‑year‑old Thalia Jones, according to NBC affiliate WMC Action News 5.
When the vehicle stops, the trooper is heard ordering the driver to exit. Instead, a voice from inside shouts, "My baby's coming out first." Moments later, a toddler is seen climbing out of the wreck and running toward the officers.
"Come stay right here. You're OK, come right here, baby," the trooper tells the child before turning his attention back to the driver.
"Is it just you? Why did you run from me with a baby in the car?"
Jones eventually crawls out of the overturned car, struggling to move. As she approaches the officers, the trooper scolds her, saying, "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You could've killed your own child."
He tells her he clocked her at 80 mph in a 55 mph zone. Jones said she fled because she didn’t have a valid driver’s license.
The trooper responds, "That's why you ran from me? You ran from me because you don't have a license? You almost killed your kid, do you understand me?"
The child was uninjured and released to another adult at the scene, according to WMC Action News 5. Jones, who was medically cleared, faces multiple charges, including speeding, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license, endangering a child and unauthorized use of another person's vehicle to commit a crime, according to the outlet.
Arkansas State Police say the Dodge Charger belonged to Jones' boyfriend.