A Florida police chief flashed her badge to get out of ticket. She’s now out of a job

A Florida police chief driving a golf cart without a license plate was stopped by a fellow officer last month and flashed her badge to get out of a ticket. Just a few weeks later, she was asked to step down from her post.

Tampa Police Chief Mary O’Connor, 52, resigned Monday after a Nov. 12 traffic stop in Pinellas County. Body camera footage released Thursday shows O’Connor on a golf cart with her husband Keith O’Connor, asking a deputy to let them go.

“I’m the police chief in Tampa,” O’Connor told the deputy before handing over her badge. “I’m hoping you’ll just let us go tonight.”

She then gave the deputy her business card and told him if he “needed anything to call her.” The deputy, who pulled the golf cart over because it didn’t have a license plate while they drove on a public road, let them go without a citation.

O’Connor didn’t notify Tampa Mayor Jane Castor of the traffic stop until Wednesday, more than two weeks after the incident, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Shortly after, Castor viewed the footage and ordered an internal affairs investigation.

By Friday, Castor announced that O’Connor was placed on administrative leave. In a Monday release, Castor said she asked O’Connor to resign, noting that it’s unacceptable for a public official to ask for special treatment because of their position.

The internal affairs bureau found that O’Connor violated the department’s “standard of conduct” and “abuse of position or identification.”

“The Tampa Police Department has a code of conduct that includes high standards for ethical and professional behavior that apply to every member of our police force,” Castor said in her statement. “As the Chief of Police, you are not only to abide by and enforce those standards but to also lead by example. That clearly did not happen in this case.”

O’Connor told the captain conducting the internal review that asking to be let go without a ticket was a mistake. However, she insisted that she identified herself as a police officer for “safety.”

In her statement, Castor said that she was disappointed in O’Connor because she had already given her a second chance more than 25 years ago.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the second chance Castor referred to was related to O’Connor’s behavior and arrest during a 1995 traffic stop.

Decades previously, O’Connor was pulled over by a Hillsborough sheriff’s deputy with her then-boyfriend Keith O’Connor, who was a Tampa police officer. She disrupted deputies trying to give Keith O’Connor a sobriety test, kicked the windows of a patrol car and punched a deputy on the shoulder and chest, according to the Tampa Bay times.

Deputies arrested Keith O’Connor on a drunk driving charge and O’Connor for battery on a police officer, obstruction and disorderly intoxication. She pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of battery and obstruction, but a judge withheld adjudication.

Both officers were fired but later reinstated — and their arrests had little effect on their ability to climb the ladder.

Keith O’Connor retired in 2019 as an assistant chief and now serves as Tampa’s neighborhood enhancement manager, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

In her resignation letter, O’Connor, who became police chief in February on a salary of more than $190,000, said she is leaving the department “with great sadness.”

“I promised that I would serve the community I love to the best of my abilities, as I did for 22 years prior to my retirement, and I feel that I have done just that,” O’Connor said in the letter.