Dashcam video captured the moment an officer used a PIT maneuver to stop a woman fleeing with a newborn in the car in Broward County–and his insistence that she made the situation “10 times worse” by refusing to stop.
The emotional encounter between Florida Highway Patrol Officer Jefferson Guerrier and the suspect, Vintoya Charneice Woodard, 28, happened on Sept. 17.
The chase began before 6 p.m., when a Guerrier tried to stop a Lincoln with an expired license plate on Southwest 10th Street east of the Sawgrass Expressway (State Road 869).
The driver, identified as Woodard, “began to evade and elude,” almost hitting two cars and not stopping at a red light, according to an arrest report.
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The officer pursued Woodard for about three minutes, until she got on Interstate 95 going south, the report states.
That’s when video shows how Guerrier speeds up to the Lincoln’s right side and performs a PIT maneuver. The suspect vehicle spins briefly and comes to a stop.
The footage shows how Woodward steps out, and the officer orders her to put her hands in the air and get on the ground.
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Immediately, she asks about her child.
“Can I get my baby?” she asks, as she stands back up.
“No, get on the ground,” the trooper responds.
He walks over to her, and a baby can be heard crying.
“You’re under arrest,” the officer tells Woodard.
“Why?” she asks. “My baby’s back there. Could I call my sister?”
“Nope,” the trooper responds.
The two exchange more words.
“Please get my baby. She chokes. She has acid reflux,” Woodard continues.
Guerrier is quiet.
“You heard me?” Woodard asks.
“Why’d you run?” Guerrier says.
“Because I know my license suspended,” she says.
“OK, now you’re going to jail,” the trooper answers. “I would’ve gave you a ticket.”
“Please don’t take me. You would’ve? Please give me a ticket. Please. My baby,” Woodard says, increasingly emotional. “My baby. She don’t have nobody.”
“We’ll figure that out,” the officer says. “You should’ve thought about that before.”
The baby wails as the two talk.
As the officer asks questions, Woodard continues to say that the child has acid reflux, and asks if she can check on her. She says she didn’t want to stop because her daughter is "a NICU baby."
“I can’t give you a chance. You hit a car back there; you ran. That’s a felony,” the officer says. "It's too late to give you a ticket now. We're past that."
“I was so scared… I didn’t hit anybody,” Woodard says as she begs to be near the baby, and a ticket.
"I wish I had that option here, but I don't, it's too late. Why would you run?" Guerrier responds. "We could work with a suspended license. I would've had you call somebody."
Some time passes, and another officer and paramedics respond.
As Woodard is moved away from the Lincoln, Guerrier tells her that after the paramedics look at the baby, they would call Woodard’s sister.
She continues to ask for another chance, repeating that her baby doesn't have anyone else.
“Trust me, I believe you,” the trooper says. “But you made the situation 10 times worse.”
Eventually, it appears Guerrier is able to get Woodard’s brother on the phone, who asks if he’s being pranked.
“I need you to come here so that someone can take the baby, OK? The baby’s in the ambulance right now. We need a family member to come take the baby, because we don’t want [the Department of Children and Families] to come take the baby,” Guerrier says. “This is not no prank, I can promise you that.”
The man on the phone replies: “I’m going to come right now and get my niece.”
Woodard is accused of child neglect without great bodily harm, attempting to flee law enforcement and driving with a suspended license without a prior forcible felony.
She was out on bond, but it was not immediately clear if and when she would appear again in court.
