A Kansas City man is heading to prison after leading a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper on a high-speed chase down Interstate 35 that reached 110 mph before ending with a PIT maneuver and an arrest at gunpoint. Bryan Noyola-Delacruz was sentenced to three years in the Missouri Department of Corrections for the January 2 pursuit, which began as a routine traffic stop and escalated into a felony case under Missouri's Valentine's Law.
Traffic Stop Turns Into High-Speed Pursuit
According to KCTV, a trooper first tried to pull over Noyola-Delacruz's tan Honda Accord on southbound I-35 near NE Parvin Road after clocking the car going 80 mph in a 55 mph zone. Instead of stopping, Noyola-Delacruz sped up, and the Clay County Prosecuting Attorney's Office says the pursuit reached speeds up to 110 mph as he headed south toward East Front Street. The chase carried him across the Christopher S. Bond Bridge on I-35, one of the busiest crossings in the Kansas City area.
On the other side of the bridge, the trooper executed a Tactical Vehicle Intervention, commonly known as a PIT maneuver, to force Noyola-Delacruz's car to a stop. Per the prosecutor's office, the trooper then held him at gunpoint before placing him under arrest. The Missouri State Highway Patrol's Troop A, based in Lee's Summit, patrols Jackson, Clay, and 11 surrounding counties across the Kansas City region, according to prior Hoodline reporting.
Prosecuted Under Valentine's Law
Clay County prosecutors charged Noyola-Delacruz with aggravated fleeing under Valentine's Law, the statute that took effect in August 2024 and turned fleeing a traffic stop at high speed into a felony. The law, codified as RSMo Section 575.151, was named in memory of St. Louis County Police Detective Antonio Valentine, who died in a 2021 pursuit. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Alyssa Benjamin handled the case, State of Missouri v. Bryan Noyola-Delacruz, Case No. 26CY-CR00005-01, which concluded with the three-year prison sentence this month.
Under the statute, aggravated fleeing that creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury or death is classified as a Class D felony, carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison without eligibility for probation or parole. The law's penalties escalate further if a pursuit causes injury or death, rising to a Class B felony for physical harm to another person and a Class A felony if someone is killed.
Part of a Broader Crackdown
Noyola-Delacruz's case is one of many. In the first 11 months after Valentine's Law took effect, the Clay County Prosecutor's Office filed 76 cases under the statute, averaging roughly one aggravated fleeing case every four days, according to a report from KearneyCountry.com. That pace has continued into 2026, with Hoodline previously reporting on a 10-year sentence Benjamin's office secured against a Liberty man after a chase that also turned up fentanyl equivalent to 19,500 lethal doses.
Troopers now have more tools to end these pursuits quickly. Following agency-wide certification in June 2025, Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers executed 58 Tactical Vehicle Interventions statewide during 2025, achieving a 70.7% success rate in terminating chases, according to patrol training documentation. That tactical shift, combined with the felony exposure created by Valentine's Law, reflects a coordinated push by Missouri authorities to discourage drivers from fleeing traffic stops in the first place. Whether that combination changes driver behavior over time remains to be seen, but for now, Clay County's docket keeps filling with cases like Noyola-Delacruz's.
