New body camera video is providing a closer look at a traffic stop involving Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo, which quickly raised questions about why the mayor was driving a car with emergency police lights.<\/p>\n
According to Miami Police, Calvo was pulled over on June 14 after making an improper left turn.<\/p>\n
“Is this a police car? Is this your personal?” the officer is heard asking Calvo in the bodycam footage.<\/p>\n
“I’m an elected official,” Calvo responds.<\/p>\n
But the officer says the vehicle’s lights quickly became the bigger concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou turn on your police lights,” he says. “That\u2019s a criminal offense, and I can easily take you to jail. So I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re the mayor. If I stop you and you\u2019re not a police officer, you need to stop and not activate police lights.\u201d<\/p>\n
After several minutes, the responding officer came back and issued two tickets to Calvo for an improper left turn and prohibited lights on his vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re in possession of a police officer vehicle, but you are not a police officer, which that right there could be a third-degree felony,” the officer says.<\/p>\n
The mayor pleaded not guilty to both citations, and the case remains pending.<\/p>\n
“One citation relates to a traffic maneuver and the second concerns equipment that was installed on a vehicle owned by and registered to the Hialeah Police Department, a vehicle that was retrofitted before I took office and before the vehicle was assigned to me,” Calvo said in a statement in part.<\/p>\n
NBC6 asked the Hialeah Police Department whether it is standard practice to provide a fully equipped police vehicle to the mayor, and is still waiting for a response. It\u2019s unclear if, at this point, the mayor is driving the same vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New body camera video is providing a closer look at a traffic stop involving Hialeah Mayor Bryan Calvo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1009,225,227,226],"class_list":["post-333945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-caught-on-camera","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}