The police chief of Tampa, Florida, has apologized and is asking for a disciplinary assessment of herself after she flashed her badge to get out of a cease for touring in a golf cart with out a license plate, officers stated Thursday.
Physique digital camera video from a Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy captured the Nov. 12 encounter in Oldsmar, northwest of Tampa. Tampa police launched the video Thursday.
Chief Mary O’Connor, who was appointed in February, was a passenger in a golf cart pushed by her husband, police stated in an announcement.
The video reveals O’Connor ask the deputy whether or not his physique digital camera is on, and when he responds that it’s, she says, “I’m the police chief in Tampa.” The deputy asks how she’s doing.
“I’m doing good. I’m hoping that you simply’ll simply allow us to go tonight,” O’Connor says as she opens her badge case and arms it to her husband, the video reveals. The deputy lets them go.
The couple personal property in a “golf-cart pleasant neighborhood,” O’Connor stated within the assertion. However automobiles outdoors of residential areas will need to have license plates.
She stated within the assertion that it was the primary time that they had left the neighborhood within the golf cart and that it was “poor judgment” to be driving it on a public roadway with out applicable tags.
O’Connor stated she supplied to pay any effective and apologized to the deputy. “I do know that nobody is above the regulation, together with me,” she stated in an announcement.
Mayor Jane Castor stated that O’Connor “has voluntarily reached out to the Tampa Police Skilled Requirements Bureau asking to obtain the identical self-discipline that any officer would obtain for related conduct” and that an inner assessment is underway.
