Arkansas Trooper Chases Down a Buick After an Early-Morning Run Through Little Rock

At 4 A.M., the Empty Roads Can Be Deceptive

Little Rock looked almost asleep.

It was August 2, 2026, and the clock on an Arkansas State Police patrol vehicle showed approximately 4:26 in the morning. Most businesses were closed. Traffic was sparse. Long stretches of roadway that would become crowded only a few hours later were nearly empty.

Then a Buick Encore GX refused to stop.

Within moments, the quiet early-morning drive transformed into a police pursuit.

Arkansas State Trooper Tre Davis accelerated behind the compact SUV as it moved through Little Rock. Emergency lights reflected from the roadway while the speed displayed on the patrol-car recording climbed.

At one point, Davis's cruiser was traveling around 80 mph.

The Buick remained ahead.

What makes the footage compelling isn't simply the speed. It is the contrast between the empty streets and the uncertainty surrounding the vehicle.

There are fewer cars on the road at four in the morning, but that does not make a pursuit harmless. Intersections still appear with little warning. A driver entering from a side street may have no idea that a fleeing vehicle is approaching. A mistake that takes only a second can turn an otherwise empty roadway into a crash scene.

For Davis, the challenge was therefore not merely catching the Buick.

It was bringing the situation to an end without allowing the pursuit to become something worse.

And for this particular Arkansas trooper, the dangers of a high-speed pursuit were not theoretical.

Several years earlier, Davis himself had nearly died during one.

The Trooper Behind the Dashcam Had Survived a Devastating Crash

The name visible in the lower-right corner of the footage is Tre Davis.

His journey to the Arkansas State Police is unusually relevant to what unfolds in this video.

Before joining ASP, Davis worked as an officer for the Bryant Police Department.

On September 24, 2022, Davis and another Bryant officer became involved in a motorcycle pursuit on Springhill Road. Arkansas State Police eventually joined and took the lead.

Then Davis lost control of his patrol car.

The crash was catastrophic.

His police vehicle struck a tree and was torn apart. Part of it also struck another vehicle on the roadway. Davis later said he could not remember the events of that day.

His injuries were extensive.

According to KARK's reporting, Davis suffered a broken shoulder blade and pelvis and broke nearly every rib. He lost his spleen as well as portions of his pancreas and liver.

Yet he survived.

Five months later, Davis returned to work.

Even more remarkably, at the time of that crash he had recently been accepted into the process of becoming an Arkansas State Trooper.

The injuries delayed that goal rather than ending it.

Arkansas State Police Commission records subsequently listed Tre Davis among the approved applicants for the 2023B recruit school.

In December 2023, Davis graduated as part of an ASP class of 52 recruits after completing approximately 760 hours of training.

Less than three years later, his name appears on the dashcam footage from this pursuit.

That background gives the video an unusual dimension.

The trooper chasing the Buick knew better than most people what could happen when a police pursuit suddenly went wrong.

The Buick keeps moving

The footage identifies the fleeing vehicle as a white Buick Encore GX.

As the pursuit develops, Davis remains behind it through Little Rock.

GPS information embedded in the video places the patrol vehicle around latitude 34.72 to 34.73 north and longitude 92.26 to 92.27 west during portions of the encounter, consistent with Little Rock.

The dashcam also provides something written accounts often cannot: speed.

At approximately 4:26:52 a.m., Davis's cruiser is shown traveling about 80 mph.

The Buick remains several car lengths ahead.

At that speed, events develop extremely quickly.

A vehicle traveling 80 mph covers roughly 117 feet every second.

That means a driver has only seconds to respond to an unexpected vehicle, intersection, curve or obstacle.

The darkness adds another complication.

Headlights illuminate only part of the roadway ahead, while flashing emergency lights can reflect from signs, vehicles and pavement. The fleeing driver's movements therefore become especially important.

Davis continues following.

But the pursuit does not ultimately end in the kind of violent collision that could easily have resulted from those speeds.

Eventually, the Buick stops.

From an 80 MPH Pursuit to a Face-to-Face Encounter

The change in the footage is dramatic.

Minutes earlier, the Buick was disappearing down dark roads with an Arkansas State Police cruiser following at highway speeds.

Now it is stationary.

The recording later places Davis around coordinates 34.731046, -92.268414 at approximately 4:28 a.m.

The Buick's brake and rear lights glow brightly against the darkness.

Davis's cruiser stops directly behind it.

Now the danger has changed.

Speed is no longer the primary concern.

The people inside the vehicle are.

This transition is one of the most unpredictable parts of a police pursuit.

During the chase, the officer's attention is focused heavily on driving: maintaining control, monitoring speed, anticipating traffic and keeping the fleeing vehicle in sight.

Once the suspect vehicle stops, the officer suddenly has to think about an entirely different set of possibilities.

Will the driver surrender?

Will someone run?

Will the vehicle suddenly accelerate again?

Are there passengers?

Does anyone inside have a weapon?

The dashcam cannot answer those questions in advance.

Neither can the trooper.

Davis gets out.

He moves toward the Buick and begins dealing directly with its occupants.

The quiet roadway is now illuminated by emergency lights.

A compact SUV can still create a dangerous pursuit

The Buick Encore GX is not the type of vehicle normally associated with dramatic police chases.

It is a compact crossover.

But the risk of a pursuit depends far more on speed, roadway conditions and driver behavior than on whether the fleeing vehicle looks powerful.

Even an ordinary family vehicle can become dangerous when driven at high speed through public streets.

This is an important point because online police footage often makes pursuits look almost like competitions between vehicles.

They are not.

The police officer's objective is not simply to prove that the patrol car can catch the fleeing vehicle.

Every pursuit creates a balance between apprehension and public safety.

The longer a pursuit continues, the more opportunities exist for another motorist to enter the roadway at the wrong moment.

The footage from Davis's cruiser illustrates that problem particularly clearly because the streets appear so quiet.

Empty roads can create a false sense of security.

At 4:30 a.m., a driver approaching an intersection may reasonably expect very little traffic.

That expectation can become dangerous if another vehicle suddenly arrives at pursuit speeds.

The significance of Davis's previous crash

Davis's personal history makes this pursuit especially striking.

In his 2023 interview following ASP graduation, he reflected on the dangers inherent in law enforcement.

The earlier pursuit crash had nearly ended his life before his State Police career even began.

Arkansas State Police Trooper Austin Kennedy, a friend of Davis who was among those responding after the 2022 wreck, described the severity of what happened. Kennedy said that seeing such an incident involving one of his best friends affected him differently.

Davis himself acknowledged that entering a patrol car for work carries risk, but connected that risk to the responsibility of protecting the public.

That statement becomes remarkably relevant when watching the August 2026 dashcam footage.

Davis is once again driving at high speed behind a fleeing vehicle.

But this time he is wearing the uniform he had been working toward before the crash.

The officer who once had to recover from devastating pursuit injuries is now the Arkansas State Trooper controlling the pursuit from behind the wheel.

That does not tell us anything about the guilt or motives of the Buick's occupants.

It does, however, add important context to the person whose camera recorded the incident.

Why the ending matters more than the speed

Police pursuits naturally attract attention because of their fastest moments.

Viewers see the speedometer climb.

They watch the distance between the vehicles shrink.

They wait for a PIT maneuver, collision or sudden turn.

But sometimes the most important part comes after everything slows down.

Here, the Buick eventually stops.

Davis approaches.

There is no need to invent a spectacular ending when the real footage already contains the tension of an uncertain roadside confrontation.

The people inside have gone from being distant taillights to individuals only a few feet away.

Davis now has to control the scene.

That requires a completely different skill set from the driving that brought him there.

The transition also illustrates something often overlooked in pursuit videos: catching the car is only one part of the job.

Officers still have to safely take people into custody.

They may need to identify the driver and passengers.

They need to determine why the vehicle fled.

They may have to search for evidence.

They need to investigate any traffic violations or collisions that occurred during the pursuit.

And only then can prosecutors and courts determine what criminal allegations, if any, will ultimately survive.

In this case, I have not located sufficiently reliable publicly indexed reporting to identify the Buick's driver or provide a final list of charges.

That means those details should remain unanswered rather than filled with guesses.

The footage itself gives us plenty to examine.

The Chase Ends Where Police Work Really Begins

At approximately 4:28 that morning, the white Buick is stationary.

Trooper Davis is outside his cruiser.

The pursuit phase is finished.

Only a few minutes separate this scene from the moment when the ASP dashcam showed approximately 80 mph.

That is how quickly these encounters change.

One moment, a trooper is making driving decisions at highway speed.

The next, he is standing beside the vehicle he was pursuing and communicating directly with its occupants.

For Tre Davis, there is another layer to the story.

Four years earlier, another pursuit had nearly killed him.

His patrol car had been torn apart.

He suffered injuries that could easily have ended his career.

Instead, he recovered, returned to law enforcement and eventually completed Arkansas State Police training.

The Arkansas State Police Commission's records confirm his path through the recruit process, while contemporary reporting documented his graduation in December 2023.

By August 2026, he was no longer the injured Bryant officer hoping he might someday make it into ASP.

His name was displayed on an Arkansas State Police dashcam as he pursued a fleeing Buick through Little Rock before dawn.

That doesn't make the pursuit heroic entertainment.

If anything, Davis's history emphasizes why pursuits must be taken seriously.

He had personally experienced what happens when control disappears at speed.

The fact that this Buick eventually came to a stop without the footage ending in another catastrophic wreck is therefore one of the most important elements of the encounter.

There is a tendency to judge police pursuit videos by how dramatic the crash is at the end.

But the safest ending is often the least cinematic one.

The vehicle stops.

The officer gets out.

Everyone survives the drive.

And the investigation continues on foot.

On August 2, that is where the most dangerous phase of this Little Rock pursuit finally ended.

Watch How Quickly the Situation Changes

This Arkansas State Police footage is compelling not simply because the speedometer reaches around 80 mph. Its real tension comes from watching a quiet pre-dawn roadway transform into a pursuit and then, just as quickly, into a close-range police encounter beside a stopped Buick.

Knowing the history of Trooper Tre Davis adds another dimension. Years before this recording, a pursuit crash nearly killed him and temporarily interrupted his goal of becoming an Arkansas State Trooper. He recovered, completed the training and eventually returned to the same kind of unpredictable roadway environment that had changed his life.