Bodycam footage from the Orlando Police Department shows two police officers pulling over Florida’s only black state attorney, Aramis Ayala. One officer claims they made the stop because the tint on her car’s windows was too dark.
In a video released by the Daily Mail, the officer examined her driver’s license and struggled to explain why he pulled Ayala over, saying, “Thank you, your tag didn’t come back. Never seen that before, but we’re good now. We ran the tag; I’ve never seen it before with a Florida tag. It didn’t come back to anything, so that’s the reason for the stop.”
Ayala asked the officers to explain why they ran her tags. One officer then stated, “Oh, we run tags through all the time, whether it’s a traffic light and that sort of stuff. That’s how we figure out if cars are stolen and that sort of thing,” he said. “Also, the windows are really dark. I don’t have a tint measure, but that’s another reason for the stop.”
Read more at the Daily Mail.
DISCUSSION
Again this is why I stress every PoC that drives regularly needs to have a forward and cabin dash camera.
I get pre-textually stopped multiple times a year, and I can tell you from experience that the officers’ tone changes immediately once they notice they are being recorded.