Tampa Police Chief Resigns After Flashing Her Badge During Golf Cart Traffic Stop: ‘Just Let Us Go’

The head of police in Tampa, Fla., has surrendered after she attempted to utilize her position to get pardoned during a traffic stop the month before.

Tampa City chairman Jane Castor declared Monday that Police Boss Mary O’Connor had presented her abdication following an examination by interior undertakings into the episode on Nov. 12.

O’Connor’s companion was driving a golf truck on a public street without a tag that night when they were pulled over by a Pinellas Province Sheriff’s Office delegate in Oldsmar, as per a Dec. 1 public statement from Tampa Police Division (TPD).

Bodycam film shared Thursday on TPD’s YouTube page shows O’Connor attempting to hand the appointee her identification subsequent to inquiring as to whether his camera was on.

“I’m the police boss in Tampa,” she says, prior to adding: “I’m trusting you’ll just let us go this evening.” O’Connor likewise gave the representative a business card and told him, “In the event that you really want anything, call me — serious,” as per an inside undertakings report specifying the episode. The delegate ultimately let them off with a verbal advance notice.

On Nov. 30 — almost three weeks after the fact — O’Connor educated the city chairman regarding the episode, the archive said.

She later guaranteed in a meeting that she imparted her personality to the delegate “for wellbeing” however let it be known was inappropriate to demand that representative not issue a ticket.

Castor referred to it as “unsatisfactory” for a public representative, for example, O’Connor, who filled in as the city’s top policeman, to look for extraordinary treatment “in view of their situation.”

In her Dec. 1 explanation, O’Connor conceded that she utilized “misguided thinking” during the Nov. 12 occurrence. ”

Looking back,” she added, “I understand how my treatment of this matter could be considered to be unseemly, yet that was unquestionably not my plan.” “As somebody who has managed, taken responsibility for developed from my previous mishaps, I realize that nobody is exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else, including me,” O’Connor said, per the public statement.

Castor referred to O’Connor’s activities as “particularly frustrating” taking into account she had given the now-previous police boss “another opportunity”

In 1995, O’Connor was terminated from the division during her initial experience on the power after she was captured for battery and block during a traffic stop for smashed driving including her future spouse, as per The Tampa Cove Times. She was rehired soon thereafter.

“I had high expect Boss O’Connor, as she was set for a particularly amazing beginning by diminishing fierce firearm wrongdoing, proactively drawing in with our local area and zeroing in on official health,” Castor said on Monday. “However, these achievements could not hope to compare to the need I put on honesty.”

O’Connor said she “actually” reached the Pinellas District Sheriff and proposed to “pay for any likely reference,” as indicated by TPD’s Dec. 1 official statement.

Partner Boss Lee Bercaw, a 25-year veteran of the division, will act as acting boss while the city looks for a substitution, as per the public statement, which referred to Bercaw as “a smart and exceptionally respected innovator in moderate policing.”

The chairman has no cutoff time for employing another boss, and the city “completely anticipates” that the interaction “will require a while” to finish.

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