SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. – Cellphone video of a woman’s arrest during a traffic stop in Sunny Isles Beach Tuesday has been making the rounds on social media, with viewers having mixed reactions.
Police identified the woman Wednesday as 32-year-old Cecilia Selina Mercado. Mercado is a Latin singer known as Sessi.
According to her arrest report, she was pulled over in a white Audi Q5 around 7 p.m. in the 100 block of Sunny Isles Boulevard.
The report states the vehicle had a counterfeit license plate that falsely claimed Mercado was a “diplomat” and an “ambassador at large.”
It also stated that the license plate was non-expiring and that Mercado was a non-citizen, the report stated.
In the video, Mercado is behind the wheel of the car as her passenger is recording her interaction with the officers who asked her for her driver’s license, however she offered them her passport instead.
The officers then asked her to step out of the car but she refused.
As an officer holds onto Mercado’s arm as she remains sitting in the vehicle, her male passenger, identified in an incident report as Scott Huss, yells at the officer to let her go and tells two police officers they will lose their jobs and that they will have to pay Mercado $250,000 after he takes them to court.
“They have no jurisdiction over you,” he tells Mercado at one point.
“She is not a United States citizen,” he then tells the officers.
The officer holding onto the woman eventually yanks her out of the car and handcuffs her.
Police said Mercado later admitted to having a Florida driver’s license and did not respond when an officer asked her why she didn’t admit to that before.
Some who viewed the video on social media believed the officers were overreacting while others said she should have just complied with their orders to begin with.
“When she presented her passport card, they said it was an unacceptable form of identification,” Huss told Local 10 News Wednesday. “Nothing should get to the point where somebody is dragging somebody out of vehicle for a wrong left turn.”
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Sunny Isles Beach police released a statement Tuesday night, saying the video didn’t capture the entire incident.
“The female driver shown in the video was stopped by our officers for traffic violations. She then stated she had ‘immunity.’ She repeatedly refused to comply with officers’ orders and was placed in handcuffs,” the statement read in part. “Upon further investigation, it was determined that the diplomatic tag that was affixed to the car was counterfeit and the female driver was arrested for driving with a counterfeit tag.”
According to her arrest report, Mercado told officers that the car was registered with the U.S. Department of State.
She was initially given four traffic citations and released, however a special agent with the Department of State confirmed a short time later that the license plate was “not a valid diplomat tag as a diplomat tag has several letters in addition to numbers,” the incident report stated.
She was subsequently arrested on a charge of having a counterfeit registration, license plate or sticker on a motor vehicle.
Local 10 News requested bodycam footage from the incident, however a spokesperson for the police department said its officers do not wear body cameras.
Mercado was released from jail Wednesday on a $2,500 bond.
A Local 10 News crew was outside the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as she and Huss left in a Maybach that also had a diplomat tag, along with a handicap placard.
Local 10 assignment desk editor Wilson Louis contributed to this report.