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Police in Arkansas were already on the lookout for a Dodge Charger Hellcat stolen out of Memphis, Tennessee and registered under a fake VIN when a trooper happened to spot the muscle car. Sometimes in these situations the person who ends up with the vehicle has no idea it’s stolen, leaving them in complete shock when police take it away. However, it seems that in this case the driver might have known something about that.
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We say that because when the trooper tries pulling over the Hellcat, as you can see in the included dashcam video, the suspect makes a run for it. While Hellcats are plenty fast and many cops struggle to keep up, Arkansas State Police is one law enforcement agency we wouldn’t test.
The suspect goes hard once the cruiser’s lights turn on, like the guy already knew he was in trouble. Sure enough, he was able to pull away in short order, leaving the trooper to trail behind.
In this situation, the radio might be helpful to a degree but any other troopers hopping into the chase would need some way to stop the Mopar. Spikes might work, although the speed of the Hellcat poses some logistical challenges.
But that same asset working in the suspect’s favor, speed, is also his biggest liability. As you go too fast on roads designed for much slower travel, trouble can happen in a hurry.
The suspect wrecked out at 160 mph after going over some railroad tracks. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the tracks and the raised pavement before them caused the Dodge to launch into the air. You can see the Charger hit a utility pole right after the tracks, then traveled a couple hundred feet or so before the mangled mess finally came to a stop.
That’s not the worst of it: the driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and so became a free bird for a moment before coming back down to earth, hard. Somehow he survived that and was taken to the hospital, but as soon as he gets better he’s headed straight to jail.
Considering how fast the Hellcat caught on fire, maybe it was a good thing the guy went flying out the window?
Image via LRHNCash/YouTube
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