- Police initiated a stop after spotting a car without headlights at night.
- The driver repeatedly pulled over before continuing down the road.
- Officers ended the pursuit with a PIT maneuver and made an arrest.
Sometimes police pursuits involve triple-digit speeds, spike strips, and dramatic crashes. Other times they involve a driver creeping along at 25 mph (40 km/h), repeatedly pretending to stop, and ultimately claiming that the law simply doesn’t apply to them. According to police in Washington State, that’s exactly what happened this week when a routine traffic stop turned into what might be one of the slowest and dumbest pursuits you’ll hear about all year.
According to a post from the Hoquiam Police Department, an officer spotted a car heading northbound on Lincoln Street at around 10:11 p.m. with no headlights illuminated despite the darkness. The vehicle, which from the grainy photo appears to be a Hyundai Accent, was also moving below the posted speed limit, something officers say can sometimes indicate an impaired driver.
After the officer initiated a stop, the driver pulled over, then drifted back into traffic and carried on down the road.
Read: Motorcyclist Survives 130 MPH Crash During Police Chase
Rather than escalating into a high-speed chase, the pursuit reportedly remained at a snail’s pace. Eventually, the Hoquiam officer performed a PIT maneuver. That action successfully stopped the vehicle, but the weirdness didn’t stop there. After the officers took the female driver into custody, they realized that her actions weren’t due to intoxication, medication, or drowsiness.
Instead, she allegedly insisted that they simply had no authority over her. She’s a “sovereign citizen,” a member of a movement whose followers often argue that they are not subject to government laws, courts, licensing requirements, or law enforcement authority. You’ll be shocked to hear that this excuse carried exactly zero weight with the officers. In the department’s post, Interim Chief Jeff Salstrom boiled the encounter down to three words: “She was wrong.”
Salstrom also praised the officers and deputies involved, highlighting their calm radio communications and noting that local agencies regularly train together on emergency vehicle operations. In this case, that training paid off, even if the pursuit itself unfolded at a pace more commonly associated with a neighborhood bicycle ride than a police chase.
