A Florida county commissioner declared his title to the police in back-to-back speeding incidents, saying “I run the county,” footage of the event shows.
Reports of the incident document that Flagler County Commissioner Joe Mullins was in his red Ferrari when he was pulled over by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper on June 19th. Mullins was traveling 92mph in a 70 mph-speed zone on Interstate 95, as the officer’s dashcam video captured the exchange between the two, according to reports from Fox 35.
The two spoke to each other next to ongoing traffic as the officer asks Mullins for his license and registration. The officer then went back to his car to process Mullins’ information and returned back to the Ferrari minutes later.
In the video, the Florida trooper can be heard going over the citation with Mullins, saying “Hey look, so 92 miles per hour is 22 over the speed limit, ok? Normally, I give warnings, I give breaks, but it looks like you’ve been written a warning already. So I do issue the citation. With that being said it’s gonna be payable within 30 days.”
It was at this point Mullins cut off the officer and informed him that he understood how the process worked. “I run the county so I know how that works”, Mullins said right before disclosing he was the Chairman of the county commission.
The trooper then continues to explain the citation to Mullins, only for Mullins to speed away onto the highway to evade the scene.
On June 2nd, Mullins was found in a similar situation, going 89mph in a 60mph zone on Interstate 4, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal. After speaking with Mullins, the two troopers walk back into their patrol care, where one officer was heard saying “he said he was a county commissioner,” to which the other trooper replied, “yeah well he’s getting a ticket.”
According to highway patrol dispatch notes obtained by the Daytona outlet, Mullins “stated it would be a career ending move if I arrested him for failing to obey a lawful order.”
The police report described Mullins as “extremely condescending, belligerent, illogical and disrespectful,” and accused that he “flashed his business card to get out of a ticket,” according to the News Journal.
In Separate letters to local judges in which Mullins asks for leniency, according to the New York Times, he pleaded that he was in a rush and not paying attention to how fast he was driving.
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