First came the controversial traffic stop, cop vs. cop on Florida’s Turnpike, recorded on dash-cam video that went viral showing a state trooper pursuing, cuffing and detaining a hyper-speeding Miami police officer at gunpoint.
Now comes the aftermath: Some Miami police officers are not only defending their compatriot, they are threatening and insulting the Florida Highway Patrol trooper who had the nerve to write him a ticket for reckless driving.
If professional courtesy is a two-way street, it looks like the encounter between Miami Officer Fausto Lopez and Trooper Donna Jane Watts has dropped a massive ro******* between factions in their two agencies.
The grudge match has been playing out in hundreds of tit-for-tat postings on a law enforcement blog.
In this corner, Miami: “I would have loved for Watts to try and pull me over in my marked unit and draw her gun on me! She would have a very rude awakening,’’ an anonymous writer posted Monday. “I would wait til I got to my district, called all my boys, and then you Miss Watts will be very SORRY!!’
On the other side, FHP: “The dumb ass shouldn’t be doing 122 miles per hour that is RECKLESS,’’ posted another writer. “What if it’s your family that idiot rear-ends and kills, will you still want FHP to be so lenient?’’
The growing tension was heightened Sunday when Sgt. Javier Ortiz, vice president of Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the city’s 1,000-plus officers, attacked Watts and defended Lopez in a letter to union members. He accused Watts of just wanting to ticket a Miami cop.
“Officer Lopez was extremely professional,’’ Ortiz wrote. “Many of us would have acted differently if a fellow cop pulled a gun on them. I would have thought she possibly was a Baker Act that stole an FHP car and a uniform,’’ he wrote, using a legal term for mentally unstable people who are considered dangerous.
He went on to tell officers: “Please do not get to her level and begin taking action against Troopers because of the poor decisions of one. … Do not be running her information on DAVID, FCIC/NCIC, etc.,’’ referring to law enforcement databases that contain criminal records, addresses and dates of birth.
Such databases are to be used only for law enforcement purposes, not to gain personal information.
The bickering is about a mid-morning Oct. 11 incident that took place in the south-bound lanes of the Turnpike near the Hollywood exit. In an FHP offense report, Watts saids Lopez passed her, weaving in and out of traffic, at speeds over 120 mph.
The dash cam video from her patrol car shows Watts following Lopez for five minutes, with his patrol car generally too far ahead to be seen on camera. As she finally nears him, she turns on her siren and lights for two minutes before he pulls over.
Watts wrote that after she hit her siren, “the driver ignored my lights and siren and again accelerated, changing lanes to the outside lane, back into the center lane, back across to the outside lane and then back to the inside lane. He slowed to 78 mph, but then accelerated again, continuing to change lanes in and out of traffic.”
On the 45-minute video, Lopez is seen eventually pulling over against the concrete highway median and stopping.
Lopez’s attorney, Bill Matthewman, said his client wasn’t aware he was being ordered to pull over, and was simply trying to get out of the trooper’s way until he realized she was tailing him.
The video then shows Watts exiting her car and drawing her weapon as she approaches the Miami patrol car. “Put your hands out the window right now,” she barked. Lopez, who is extremely polite throughout the incident, was then handcuffed and placed in the back of Watts’ vehicle.
“Oh my God, I can not believe this,” Lopez is heard saying to himself. After Lopez tells Watts he never noticed her marked car, he added, “Honestly, the handcuffs are not necessary, ma’am. I’m a police officer. I would never handcuff you, ever.”
A short while later Watts told Lopez she thought he might be driving a stolen patrol car.
Almost 20 minutes into the video, Watts can be heard saying to a supervisor on the phone, “He was detained. He was not under arrest. Okay, I’ll do it.” She then went into the back of her vehicle and apparently removed the handcuffs.
A short while later Lopez was escorted to another FHP car that had pulled up. He spent a few minutes inside that vehicle, then walked back to his patrol car and drove away. Lopez was never arrested but was charged with reckless driving, a second-degree misdemeanor.
He is back patrolling the city’s central district. Watts, too, is on the job, according to the FHP, despite blog postings stating she had been suspended for not obeying her supervisor’s purported orders to stop the pursuit.
“He’ll be pleading not guilty,” Matthewman said. “Maybe he was going too fast. To me this has been blown out of proportion.”
Yet to be answered: Did Watts check to see if the car had been reported stolen while she was following it? Did a supervisor order her to stop her pursuit? Did Watts violate FHP regulations or training in any way, particularly when she pulled her weapon and approached the car instead of waiting for back-up from a same distance?
FHP Sgt. Mark Wysocki, an agency spokesman, told The Miami Herald he believed Watts was in the process of checking if the car was stolen when Lopez pulled over. He said he did not know if a supervisor told her to stop her pursuit. He declined to comment on FHP protocols, saying, “The video speaks for itself.’’
“The actions she took were based on the driving pattern of the officer,’’ Wysocki said. “He was detained to determine why he was driving in that fashion.”
The blogosphere, meanwhile, is captivated by the controversy. Hundreds of anonymous comments have been posted on LEOAFFAIRS.com, which calls itself The Voice of Law Enforcement Online.
Though numerous threats and personal attacks have been directed at Watts, and purported members of both agencies are threatening to retaliate or not to back each other up in emergencies, there is no easy way to tell if the writers are actually law officers.
“She is an unfortunate-looking woman, her behavior probably has something to do with it,’’ a pro-Miami writer said about Watts.
Miami cops should be used to riding handcuffed in the back seat,’’ wrote an FHP supporter. “So many get arrested for rape, murder, corruption, etc.’’
Interim Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa declined to comment on the blog postings or the incident, which is under investigation by Internal Affairs. The FHP’s Wysocki likewise declined to address the blog postings.
but all worked out well.
No one will take him seriously as someone who can uphold the law.
