What This Arkansas PIT Case Really Teaches Us About Video, Perception, and Critical Incidents

By: Chief Scott Hughes

If you’re watching this video with the benefit of hindsight, the mistake may seem obvious.

What’s less obvious, and far more important, is what the trooper was experiencing in real time.

This case isn’t really about driving tactics or pursuit policy. It’s about video, human perception, and the mistake of assuming that what a camera records is the same thing an officer experiences in the moment.

The Basic Sequence Matters

Before jumping to conclusions, it helps to understand the basic sequence shown in the video.

A trooper with the Arkansas State Police stopped a white SUV for speeding. During the initial contact, he detected the odor of marijuana and learned the driver’s license was suspended.

When the trooper made a second approach, the driver fled.

During the pursuit, the trooper appears to have briefly lost sight of the suspect vehicle and then mistakenly stopped a similar white SUV traveling in the same direction. The error was quickly recognized. No one was injured.

The trooper was later terminated, and the original suspect was arrested.

That sequence matters; not to excuse what happened, but to frame how it happened.

“How Does He Not See It’s the Wrong Car?”

This is where most reactions start.

Watching the video, it’s easy to ask:
“How does he not see it’s the wrong car?”

What that reaction misses is what’s happening between the moments the camera captures.

As the suspect flees, the trooper turns his back to the vehicle, gets back into his cruiser, shifts gears, checks his mirrors, keys the radio, and prepares to re-enter moving traffic. In those seconds, his attention is divided between vehicle control, traffic, and safely merging at speed.

During that process, his eyes are not locked on the suspect vehicle, and they can’t be.

Taking your eyes off a moving vehicle for even a second or two is enough to lose sight in traffic. That’s not negligence. That’s reality.

The camera never turns its head.
The officer does.

Why This Happens More Easily Than People Think

When stress and urgency increase, attention narrows. People don’t process information the way a camera does. They focus on what seems most important in that moment.

Here, the trooper was transitioning from a stop back into motion while managing traffic, the radio, and vehicle control. In that environment, it doesn’t take much to lose sight of a moving vehicle. A brief moment of divided attention is enough.

It’s also important to recognize that officers don’t experience events in isolation. Context stacks. Excessive speed, non-compliance, and flight from police all elevate urgency. Even factors that don’t independently signal danger, such as the odor of marijuana, can add to that sense of urgency when combined with everything else happening at once.

Once stress builds, the brain relies more on expectations. If things appear to line up, the mind often accepts them and moves on.

That isn’t recklessness.
It’s how people function under pressure.

Similar Vehicles, Real Certainty

Both vehicles were white SUVs.

Both vehicles looked similar and were traveling in the same direction, shortly after the trooper lost sight of the suspect.

In the trooper’s mind, “THIS IS THE CAR” likely felt settled and correct.

That’s not stubbornness or carelessness.
It’s a normal human response to stress and urgency.

Experience Still Matters

Another important piece of context is the trooper’s experience level.

He was a young trooper, still on probation, with only a few months on the job. That matters. Not as criticism, but as reality.

Judgment under stress develops over time. Newer officers often move faster toward action when urgency spikes. More experienced officers tend to develop a natural pause, a moment to reassess or re-identify before committing to a high-risk decision.

That pause isn’t taught in a classroom.
It comes from experience.

What Video Can, and Can’t, Tell Us

This case is a reminder of what video does well, and where it falls short.

Video captures events.
It does not capture perception, stress, or decision-making.

Watching an incident later often makes it feel clearer and slower than it was in real time. That gap between video and lived experience is where misunderstanding usually starts.

Video should help inform learning, not replace it.

The Real Takeaway

The lesson here isn’t that video lies.

It’s that video is incomplete.

If we want better training, fairer evaluations, and safer outcomes, we have to account for how people actually perceive and decide under stress, not just what a camera records.

Because cameras don’t experience critical incidents.
People do.