Fact Check: Don't be fooled by staged 'police bodycam' where white officer stops Black judge and 'lives to regret it'
Claim:
Police body camera footage authentically shows a white officer pulling over a Black judge before smashing her taillight during a traffic stop.
Rating:
In mid-May 2025, YouTube channel Bodycam Declassified uploaded an eight-minute video, titled: "Cop Pulls Over Black Judge and Lives To Regret It." The video (archived) claimed to show police body camera footage of a white officer pulling over a Black judge before smashing her taillight during a traffic stop.
In the video, a police officer purportedly from the city of Sunny Springs, Florida, approaches a black Mercedes. The officer makes remarks about the car being very nice and repeatedly asks whether the driver, a Black woman, owns it. After checking the driver's license and registration, the officer returns to the car with a citation for the driver, who he said drove five miles below the speed limit. The officer then covers his body camera and the sound of smashing glass plays. The driver gets out of the car and reveals she is a judge, before telling the officer she will see him in court.
The video was popular (archived) on Instagram (archived), but also spread across Facebook (archived), X (archived), TikTok (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers also messaged us to ask whether the video was true.
However, further inspection of the video revealed it was staged. A logo on the door of the police cruiser seen in the video read "City of Sunny Springs, State of Florida." We found no proof in government archives or on online map services that the city of Sunny Springs existed in Florida, nor that it had a police force. The logo was an almost exact copy (archived) of the logo for Quincy Police Department in Washington state. The video was recorded in Miami, Florida. Another staged video (archived) with a similar plot line posted in 2023 was filmed in the exact same location. Additionally, one view of the car after the broken-glass sound shows that the taillight is intact.
The YouTube channel Bodycam Declassified posted the 2025 video. The channel said in its description that "in some cases, we may reenact some elements to clarify key aspects of certain encounters." Given the above, we rate this claim false.
We reached out to the channel to ask whether the video was real, meaning not staged, and await a reply.
A logo for the company Axon, which makes body cameras, appeared in the top-right corner of the video. However, the watermark in the video used a different font than the one typically seen in genuine body camera footage from Axon cameras.
Alex Engel, vice president of global corporate communications for Axon, said via email that she could not confirm the footage wasn't genuine, meaning not staged, because police footage recorded on Axon's cameras belongs to the departments that record it. However, Engel confirmed that the watermark on the alleged traffic stop video looked different from the ones that usually appear on Axon footage.
Engel said: "The watermark doesn't look consistent with other watermarks, including a different font, which is not typical of Axon body cameras — the watermark is consistent across all cameras, except for date and model of the body camera."
The alleged traffic stop video was recorded at 127 N.E. 27th St. in Miami. A yellow building with two white garage doors could be seen at 0:20 in the video, and a white building with slim, vertical windows could be seen at 6:50.
Another YouTube channel that posted a video with a similar plot line in 2023 recorded their video at the same location. That video also shows a yellow building with the text "Miller Machinery Supply," located at 127 N.E. 27th St.
The 2023 video was clearly staged and credited actors in the video description.
The plot line of the videos appeared to be popular around May 2025 — we found two more videos posted that month depicting the same general plot line, though those videos used visuals that appeared to be generated by artificial intelligence, rather than actual footage at a real location.
Bodycam Declassified. "Cop Pulls Over Black Judge and Lives To Regret It." YouTube, 14 May 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqVEz03E3Uo&t=150s.
DHS Releases Bodycam Video of Incident Leading to Newark Mayor Baraka's Arrest. apnews.com, https://apnews.com/video/dhs-releases-bodycam-video-of-incident-leading-to-newark-mayor-barakas-arrest-3984127d25d04d27a78f993cad7c2a75. Accessed 15 May 2025.
Florida Cities - Division of Library and Information Services - Florida Department of State. https://dos.fl.gov/library-archives/research/florida-information/government/local-resources/fl-cities/. Accessed 15 May 2025.
Quincy Police Department. "QPD Has Added a Mat Room for Defensive Tactics, Patrol Tactics and De-Escalation Training!!!" Facebook, 13 May 2025, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1116049670558020&set=pb.100064589923619.-2207520000&type=3.
SoulSnack. "Hillbilly Cops Pull Over Powerful Black Judge for Driving While Black. Then This Happens." YouTube, 28 May 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmR2KaMlo_o.
"Street View of Miller Machinery & Supply Co · Google Maps." Street View of Miller Machinery & Supply Co · Google Maps, https://www.google.com/maps/place/Miller+Machinery+%26+Supply+Co/@25.8026367,-80.1921669,3a,90y,215.97h,86.32t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s19X2T2gJZHCDkmVa8pboRA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D3.680000000000007%26panoid%3D19X2T2gJZHCDkmVa8pboRA%26yaw%3D215.97!7i16384!8i8192!4m7!3m6!1s0x88d9b6ab5ca3852b:0xe93bf81dc5af03e2!8m2!3d25.8027358!4d-80.1924427!10e5!16s%2Fg%2F113j0r5dv?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUxMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D. Accessed 15 May 2025.
Tang, Hazel. Bodycam Video Shows Abrego Garcia Traffic Stop That Officials Have Used to Paint Him as a Criminal | CNN. 2025. edition.cnn.com, https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/us/video/kilmar-abrego-garcia-traffic-stop-tennessee-bodycam-digvid.
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