A four-month-old baby was flung from a rolling SUV and landed in the grass after a high-speed police chase through Camden, Arkansas, that hit speeds above 100 mph. The infant and three other children inside the vehicle, all under six years old, survived with minor injuries. The driver, 28-year-old Tyrice Fletcher, now faces a stack of felony charges including child endangerment and fleeing.
Arkansas State Police say the chase began when a trooper tried to pull Fletcher over for a traffic violation. Instead of stopping, Fletcher hit the gas. Troopers did not know four small children were riding in the SUV when the pursuit started, the New York Post reported.
What followed was a chase that pushed past 100 mph before Fletcher lost control. The SUV veered off the road, slammed into a light pole, and flipped multiple times before coming to rest in a ditch.
When the SUV stopped rolling, the four-month-old was no longer inside. The infant had been thrown from the vehicle and landed in the grass nearby. Three other young children remained trapped inside the wreckage.
Dashcam and body camera footage captured the immediate aftermath. A trooper can be heard calling out the crash over the radio.
"He's crashed out."
Troopers moved quickly to pull the children from the SUV. In the footage, one officer is heard trying to calm an injured child while carrying the boy away from the wreck.
"You're okay, you're okay."
All four children were transported to a local hospital. Arkansas State Police confirmed that each child suffered only minor injuries, a fact that The Sun described as remarkable given the violence of the crash. That a four-month-old baby survived ejection from a vehicle tumbling at highway speed is difficult to square with the physics involved. But the child lived.
Fletcher was arrested at the scene. Breitbart reported that he is a convicted felon. The charges filed against him reflect both the danger of the chase and what troopers found in the vehicle: felony fleeing, child endangerment, firearm offenses, drug charges, and failure to use child restraints.
The child restraint charge alone tells a grim story. Four children under six were riding in a car that hit triple digits on public roads, and at least one was not properly secured. The ejection of the infant makes that painfully clear.
Arkansas State Police leadership did not hold back about Fletcher's choices. ASP Colonel Mike Hagar issued a statement that landed squarely on the question of parental responsibility.
"As a father, I cannot fathom a parent making the decision to drive recklessly, much less flee from law enforcement, with their children in the vehicle."
Troop F Captain Rick Neill framed the situation in terms of the victims Fletcher created with his own decisions.
"The suspect's decisions placed four innocent victims in harm's way."
One detail stands out in the timeline: troopers had no idea children were inside the SUV when the chase began. The initial stop was for a routine traffic violation. Fletcher's decision to flee turned a minor encounter into a life-threatening pursuit.
That gap in information raises a question law enforcement agencies across the country wrestle with regularly. Pursuit policies often weigh the danger of a chase against the severity of the underlying offense. A traffic stop ranks low on that scale. But troopers on the ground had no way to know that the stakes inside the vehicle were far higher than anything Fletcher was originally being pulled over for.
By the time the SUV was careening past 100 mph, the calculus had already shifted. Fletcher was the one setting the terms of the danger, and four children were absorbing the risk.
Fletcher faces a serious legal road. Felony fleeing in Arkansas carries significant prison time on its own. Layered on top of that are the child endangerment counts, one for each child in the vehicle. The firearm and drug charges add separate exposure, particularly for a convicted felon found in possession of a weapon.
Failure to use child restraints is typically a minor offense. In this context, paired with a 100 mph chase and a baby thrown from a rolling vehicle, it becomes part of a pattern that prosecutors will likely use to argue Fletcher showed total disregard for his children's safety.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether Fletcher has retained counsel or entered any plea. The procedural next steps will include an initial court appearance and potential bond hearing, where the nature of the charges and the involvement of four young victims could weigh heavily against pretrial release.
The video of this crash is difficult to watch. An SUV tumbles off the road at highway speed, debris scatters, and troopers sprint toward the wreckage knowing children are inside. That all four survived with minor injuries is not a testament to Fletcher's judgment. It is pure luck.
The youngest victim, barely four months old, was airborne during a rollover that would have tested the structural limits of any vehicle. No car seat in the world is designed for that scenario, and investigators will need to determine whether the infant was restrained at all before the crash.
Three other children, none older than five, sat inside a vehicle driven by a man who chose a high-speed chase over a traffic ticket. Each one of them depended entirely on an adult who, according to Arkansas State Police, put his own escape ahead of their lives.
When the law holds parents to a basic standard of care, this is the floor it is trying to prevent. Fletcher allegedly blew through it at 100 miles per hour with a baby in the back seat.
