Copyright Atlanta Black Star
Bodycam footage recently surfaced showing a traffic stop from August in which a Miami man claiming to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent questioned a Black police officer’s national origin before he was arrested for drunk driving. Scott Thomas Deiseroth, 42, was arrested earlier this year for DUI and two counts of child endangerment after a traffic stop, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Officers stopped Deiseroth after seeing him driving into oncoming traffic and swerving heavily. After pulling Deiseroth over, officers noticed “a strong odor of alcohol emanating from Deiseroth, who misidentified his location and gave an erroneous direction of travel,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. Bodycam video shows the moments the cops approach Deiseroth’s car on a bridge and question him. “I’m federal. I’m trying to get home. I got my boys with me,” Deiseroth explains. When the officer asks Deiseroth for identification proving his status as a federal agent, he says he doesn’t have his ID on him. Then, the cop asks him to step outside to take some field sobriety tests. In between the tests, Deiseroth irritably questions the reason multiple officers are at the scene. A Black officer tells him they need multiple cops to help redirect the flow of traffic on a two-lane bridge where there’s no shoulder lane in order to conduct the field sobriety exercises safely. In response, Deiseroth immediately switches up his line of questioning. “Are you Haitian?” he asks the Black officer. “That’s nothing to do with my response,” the officer answers. “My question was, ‘Are you Haitian?'” Deiseroth repeats. “It doesn’t matter,” another officer responds. “It doesn’t matter where he’s from.” “It does,” Deiseroth states. Deiseroth then delays the exercises by demanding a police supervisor come to the scene. Some back-and-forth ensues between Deiseroth and the officers before he finally agrees to finish the tests. After completing the exercises, the officers handcuff Deiseroth, escort him to a police cruiser, and inform him he’s being placed under arrest for driving under the influence. “Lame!” Deiseroth responds. He then pleads with officers not to arrest him and refuses to get into the police cruiser, but finally complies after a few minutes. Deiseroth’s children, ages 7 and 9, were turned over to a family member, and the Florida Department of Children and Families was notified, according to WTVJ. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security did not confirm whether Deiseroth was an employee and said the agency was investigating the arrest.
