Uber passenger watches on in shock when his driver is pulled over and hauled away in handcuffs outside Miami International Airport
A passenger taking an Uber ride found themselves caught up in a heated incident when an agitated cop stopped his driver and hauled him away in handcuffs.
Video footage shows the rider’s view from the backseat after he was picked up from Miami International Airport on Saturday.
The clip begins once the car is already pulled over and the cop is heard asking the Uber driver, who was wearing a sweat band over his black curly hair, for his license, registration and insurance documents.
According to Miami-Dade Police, the Uber was blocking traffic while dropping off a passenger in an unauthorized location at Miami International Airport, WSVN reported.
The Uber driver appeared to be startled as he was rushed to provide the information from different places in his vehicle, but as he asked for more time to gather the documents together the cop seemed to view this as a delay tactic.
The driver nervously looked back at his passenger – who he had likely known for all of two minutes – and asked him to record what was going on.
The passenger quietly affirmed that he was already rolling, seemingly not wanting to draw any attention to himself.
Shortly after this, the cop issued his first threat to the driver as he demanded his insurance details.
‘Are you going to give it to me?’ the officer asked. ‘Or are you coming out of the car?’
Once the driver checked with the officer on which documents he wanted and if it was okay for him to reach for them, he began rooting around in his glovebox.
He appeared to hand over his license before saying to the cop: ‘It’s Saturday, we’re both working. I’m just dropping someone off.’
He gets cut off, the officer not wanting him to draw any parallels between their two jobs.
‘We’re both not doing the same thing, sir. I’m providing safety and security, and you’re obstructing the roadway,’ the officer said.
The two continued to have a heated exchange, which culminated in the officer proclaiming he is older and has more life experience.
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‘I am older. I do have more experience. You are younger, and I wish you would listen more than you speak. That’s why God gave you two ears and one mouth. You listen more than you speak.
‘Give me your registration and your insurance. I’m not here to take your nonsense.’
The driver called out the cop for being ‘aggressive’ and said ‘there’s a way to do it.’
‘I apologize if you feel that way, but you have to do what you’re told,’ the cop responds.
When the driver doesn’t immediately hand over the documents and instead lectures him about treating him kindly and like a human being, the officer threatens to pull him out of the car once again.
‘This is not normal. This is not normal,’ the driver repeats in disbelief, looking back at the passenger’s camera again.
The tension grew until the officer lost his cool. He resorted to snatching all the papers in the driver’s lap.
‘Give me the registration and give me the god damn insurance and stop playing games with me,’ the cop said as he ripped the registration from the driver’s hand.
He also told the driver that if he ‘resists’ him, he’ll ‘make the news.’
Eventually, the driver was able to pull up his insurance card on his phone, saying it was a screenshot.
This was the wrong thing to say.
‘You have to have a physical insurance,’ the cop told him.
According to Florida state law, this is incorrect.
Florida’s 2023 statutes say that proof of motor vehicle insurance ‘shall be in a uniform paper or electronic format.’
In fact, Florida is one of 49 states – and Washington D.C. – that allow its residents to show their car insurance via their phone.
New Mexico is the only state where an electronic insurance card isn’t explicitly accepted.
Officials from the police department confirmed that contrary to what the officer said, an electronic insurance card is valid during a traffic stop.
When the driver eventually confirmed he didn’t have a paper copy of his insurance, the pair’s misunderstanding of one another continued.
The cop was heard fiddling with the handcuffs and started to pull the driver out of the car. The driver reminded him that his car was still in drive.
Once the vehicle was in park, the officer wasted no time in ripping him out of his seat and slamming him up against the car window.
He then bent him over the still-open driver’s side door and ordered him to put his hands behind his back.
The passenger leaned closer and recorded the officer tightening the handcuffs over the driver’s wrists, before he yanked him away back to the police car.
He was led backwards to the squad car and put inside.
Investigators told WSVN the Uber driver wasn’t obeying commands and was detained, but wasn’t arrested.
The three-minute long video of this arrest got over 14,000 likes on TikTok and nearly 4,500 comments as of Monday morning.
Many viewers thought the cop seemed to be on a power trip, with others saying he should be fired for his conduct.
‘That was so out of control. That cop was so out of line and needs to suffer consequences – I’m sure this isn’t his first time behaving like this,’ one person wrote.
Others mentioned the cop’s flawed understanding of the law governing electronic insurance cards, with one person saying she’s been driving for ten years and has never had a problem showing insurance on her phone.
A popular Instagram account that shares Miami-Dade content reposted this video, where it got almost as much engagement as it did on TikTok.
Team South Florida, a nonprofit that supports the families of fallen officers, commented on the Instagram repost of the video.
‘This is one we cannot get behind. To our law enforcement family, take this one on the chin, learn from it, and do better,’ the organization wrote.
‘We are the first to defend law enforcement when in the right. We cannot and should not ignore when we are in the wrong though.
‘The only excuse we can think of was a bad day, tough previous call, or an ego/attitude problem. None of which are excuses.’
DailyMail.com approached the the Miami-Dade Police Department for comment.
