According to reports on Thursday, the police chief of Tampa, Florida, has expressed regret and asked for a review of her conduct after she flashed her badge to avoid being pulled over for driving a golf cart without a license plate.
The interaction on November 12 in Oldsmar, northwest of Tampa, was captured on body camera video by a Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy. The video was released by Tampa police on Thursday.
According to a statement from the police, Chief Mary O’Connor, who was appointed in February, was a passenger on a golf cart being driven by her husband.
When the deputy confirms that his body camera is on, as seen in the video, O’Connor replies, “I’m the police chief in Tampa,” after asking if it is on. The deputy queries about her state of health.
“I’m doing good. I’m hoping that you’ll just let us go tonight,” O’Connor says as she opens her badge case and hands it to her husband, the video shows. The deputy lets them go.
According to O’Connor’s statement, the couple owns property in a “golf-cart friendly community,” However, cars that are not in a residential neighbourhood need to obtain license plates.
She claimed in the statement that it was the first time they had left the neighbourhood in the golf cart and that driving it on a public road without the proper tags was “poor judgment.”
O’Connor claimed that she apologized to the deputy and offered to pay any fines. “I know that no one is above the law, including me,” she stated in a statement.
Mayor Jane Castor said that O’Connor “has voluntarily reached out to the Tampa Police Professional Standards Bureau asking to receive the same discipline that any officer would receive for similar conduct” and that an internal review is underway.
