Place your hands right back for me, MA'AM. >> FOR WHAT? >> YOU'RE JUST going to be detained forever. >> No, I'm not. I'm just going to be detained forever. >> A routine traffic stop in Escambia County, Florida. March 19th, 2023. A woman behind the wheel. Expired tags, no valid license. What happened next? Nobody expected. Officers made contact with two suspects. A woman driving, a male passenger. The vehicle had expired registration. The driver had a suspended license. In Florida, that alone is enough to detain. Driving on a suspended license in Florida is a criminal traffic offense, not just a citation. Under Florida statute 322.34, it's a secondderee misdemeanor. Officers had full authority to detain her on the spot. When officers attempted to detain her, she pulled away. A bystander stepped in to challenge the stop. The officer held his ground and stated the law clearly. Suspended license, vehicle in motion. That's enough. >> Hey, how you doing, ma'am? Keep your hands out your pockets. I have a phone. >> You're good. >> I do. >> Okay. Your tags expired and you don't have a good license. All right. >> Do you have any idea? I clify who you are. You don't have Okay. All right. You mind PLACING THIS MONEY BACK? >> YOU'RE JUST going to be paying for >> Okay. Well, I DON'T KNOW THAT. I DON'T KNOW THAT. >> PLEASE LET HER GO. SHE'S OKAY. >> Why are you grabbing her? I'm trying to detain her. Why are you grabbing her? >> I'm trying to detain her cuz she don't HAVE A GOOD LICENSE. SHE DOESN'T have a good license right now. >> I don't have She don't have a good license right now. >> DETAIN HER FOR WHAT? >> SHE DOESN'T HAVE SUSPENDED LICENSE. SHE'S DRIVING. >> How did you do that? >> Okay. Now, >> huh? >> She did not. >> Okay. Why you do that? YOU HAVE TO LISTEN. >> Step back. Step back. Step back. >> I'm not being aggressive. [screaming] Relax. >> I'm fine. I didn't put that on her. Relax. >> [screaming] >> 362. >> Relax. Get over here. >> Okay, that's fine. Relax. >> I'm trying to take right now. >> OKAY. I'M TRYING TO SEE THE RIGHT NOW. [screaming] I just got you. I got her. >> I got him. Put your hand on the bus. [screaming] on my arm. I cannot breathe. I can't breathe. >> I CANNOT BREATHE. >> HE HAS A head injury, guys. HE HAS TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. [ __ ] you. >> What is wrong with you? >> All right, I'm going to roll you up. >> Come on. COME PICK YOUR PHONE UP. PICK MY PHONE UP. >> I WILL PICK YOUR PHONE UP. Come on. >> No. My kids. >> Okay. >> Let me TALK TO MY PHONE. [screaming] >> NO. Not right now. >> I can't do my right now. NOT RIGHT NOW. >> NOT RIGHT NOW. >> MY IS MYSELF. I'M SCARED. I'M SCARED. STOP. I CAN'T BREATHE. >> Can you just step up? >> Let me breathe. >> Stand up. >> Yeah. Oh yeah, >> I'm going to start taking pictures. >> Got a nice baggie here. >> Huh? Come here, sweetie. Can you come here? >> Yeah, that no name, I guess. He gave me his name. >> All right, man. So, before I start talking to you, I got to read your rights. All right. >> No, he's over there. They're checking up on him. EMS is on the way also. >> All right. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used to get you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish. You understand each of these rights I've explained to you? >> Sure. >> All right. With these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me now? Okay. That's all I wanted to say. And >> growing up, I have PTSD and he grabbed me. Scared me. And I didn't mean to act that way. >> Well, when you're being detained by the police, you got to cooperate. You can't just pull away like that. >> It hurt me though. >> Okay. Well, if you cooperated, none of this would happen. I You didn't give me the chance. I put my phone down like you passed. >> Okay. Okay. All right. >> My arm and it hurt. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm not wrong. I didn't say anything, but I'm just saying you hurt my arm. >> Okay. All right. Well, if you did hurt your arm, which I apologize. All right. Um, so you did know about the weed in the car. You said that's his. Or is that yours? >> That's his. He has a medical card because he has a brain injury. He's got a medical card. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Well, why isn't it in that container that it's prescription to? That it's prescribed to. >> Okay. Okay. >> Okay. All right. [snorts] >> All right. Well, right now you're, you know, EMS is going to come check you out and then we're going to have somebody take some pictures of you since you're alleging that, you know, you're in pain from what I did to you. All right. So, we're going to document all this. >> Can someone please see? I can't feel the air because that was close. >> It's in there. It's feel it anywhere, guys. Like, >> I mean, it's it's coming. I could see it coming through here. >> So, I'll see if I can turn it up for you. >> I got it turned up pretty good. >> All right. >> This one's closed, though. Can you open it? >> Okay. Yeah, I'll go on the other side and open it. >> Then something unusual happened. She slipped a handcuff. The officer's reaction said everything. Most people don't slip handcuffs. It's not supposed to be possible. At this point, the original infraction is no longer the story. The moment she pulled away from a lawful detention, she picked up a second charge, Florida statute 843.02, resisting an officer without violence, up to one year in county jail on top of whatever else they'd find. She repeated, "I can't breathe," multiple times during the struggle. Officers are trained to treat that statement seriously, but also to distinguish distress from active resistance. She was doing both simultaneously. With her detained, officers turned their attention to the vehicle. Children were inside. As they removed the children, they found something else. A bag of marijuana in the glove box with children in the car. The officer documented it immediately. Photographs, verbal log, timestamped footage, everything admissible. Before questioning her further, the officer did exactly what the law requires. He stopped. He read her Miranda rights in full, verbatim. Under Miranda versus Arizona, once custody is established, that warning isn't optional. It's the threshold for anything she says next to be usable. She waved her right to remain silent and agreed to talk. That decision mattered. Everything that followed came in. She told the officer the marijuana belonged to her passenger, her husband. He had a medical card. The weed was for a brain injury. A reasonable explanation except for one problem. The marijuana was not in a state approved medical container labeled to the patient. In Florida, medical marijuana must be kept in its original dispensary packaging. An unlabeled baggie doesn't qualify. The medical card doesn't fix that. And then the male passenger became an issue of a different kind. He was found unconscious in the back of the police vehicle. Officers couldn't question him, which meant the marijuana story couldn't be confirmed or denied by the one person she said it belonged to. The officer didn't need a confession from either suspect. He needed proximity. He needed knowledge. He had both on camera for both of them. Constructive possession. That's the legal standard that closed this case. Florida courts define it as the defendant knew the contraband was present and had the ability to control it. You don't have to be holding it. You just have to know it's there. She was driving the car. He was in the passenger seat next to the glove box. Both had access. Both knew. The officer made the call out loud on camera. Charged both through constructive possession. That's not a gray area. That's doctrine. Both suspects were charged with felony possession of marijuana, possession of drug equipment, and resisting an officer. three charges from a stop that started with expired tags. This is where the lesson sits. A traffic stop becomes a criminal case the moment a suspect resists lawful detainment. The original violation, suspended license, expired tags carried minimal consequence. The resistance created the felony exposure. The officers get a B+. They stayed composed through a handcuff slip, a bystander challenge, and simultaneous claims of medical distress, all in the first 90 seconds. Miranda was delivered correctly and completely. The constructive possession call was made on solid ground. The grade isn't an A because the cuff slip happened. Procedural, not personal, but it's in the footage. She gets a D. The stop was for expired tags and a suspended license. Two civil violations on a bad day. She made it three criminal charges. Under Florida statute 843.02, resisting an officer without violence carries up to one year. That charge was entirely within her control to avoid. She cited PTSD after Miranda. The officer heard it, acknowledged it, and moved on because the marijuana was still in the glove box regardless. Post Miranda's statements explaining why you resist it don't undo the resistance. They just become part of the record. The passenger gets a C. He was unconscious for most of this. That's not a defense strategy. It's just where he ended up. But constructive possession doesn't require consciousness. It requires proximity and knowledge. The glove box was next to his seat. He was in the car. That was enough. The takeaway from this stop, lawful detainment and lawful arrest are different thresholds, but resisting either one carries identical criminal exposure under Florida law. A suspended license means you can be detained. Once you're detained, compliance is not optional, and a medical card doesn't automatically protect cannabis from seizure. The medication still has to be in the correct label dispensary container. Everything else, regardless of the underlying prescription, is subject to possession laws. If you want more body cam footage, the moments that turn a traffic stop into a felony case, hit subscribe. We post every week. Drop a comment. Should the charges have been split between the two suspects, or does constructive possession make that irrelevant? We'll see you in the next one. >> Was he sleeping or was he >> off? He's respons. I just think we need to check her out because she's complaining that I heard her. >> What you need? >> I JUST WANT TO TALK. >> YEAH, WE'RE GOOD. WE'RE GOING TO GET HIM OVER HERE TO TALK TO YOU. Can you relax now? >> Yeah. [screaming] >> Just relax. He's going to come over here in a minute. All right. Just relax. I'll bring him over here. All right. Hey, this is the investor. They're going to need your name real quick so you can go over them. Okay. >> So, why are you talking now when you weren't talking when I was asking you questions? Stay in custody. >> Sorry. Stay in custody. More than likely. >> I got to have your feet up there, man. >> She said that's her husband, but they don't have they have different last names, so I don't know. >> If she says it's her husband, sees the car. >> Okay. >> Yeah, cuz I was going to cuz she's saying it's his. It's in the glove box. He was sitting right there in the passenger side seat. I can't talk to him because he's, you know, the way he's acting right now. >> But yeah, she said that that's her, that's her husband is what she told me. >> She says it's her husband and glove. I charge both >> through constructive possession now. I mean, they're right there. They know about they both know there. Yeah, >> I charge both. >> All right, go with it. You are