The video, captured on the officer's body-worn camera, begins with the cop returning to his parked police car with a coffee cup in hand to find a Miami Parking Authority employee giving him a ticket.
"Um, I'm giving you a ticket," the employee tells the officer. "For one, you are parking illegally, and two, your lights aren't on."
The officer then tells the employee that he can park wherever he wants because he is a police officer on official business.
"No, you are parked illegally," the employee responds. You don't have your lights on. How are you at a call?" The rest of the video shows the pair arguing about the ticket and the officer warning of consequences for the employee because she gave him a parking ticket.
"There is a lot that is going to transpire from this, I promise," the cop says at the end of the clip.
The post, which appeared on the @lifestyle_miami, @miamicertified, and @alwaysinflorida Instagram accounts, garnered nearly 1,000 comments and over 250,000 views as of noon on May 9. The caption reads, "WATCH: cop gets a ticket for parking illegally and loses his mind 👀 thoughts on this?"
Comments poured in applauding the woman for standing her ground and criticizing the cop for his apparent power trip.
"Give that woman a raise," an Instagram user wrote. "Cops aren't above the law, and he clearly felt he was." That comment received 1,000 likes.
However, unbeknownst to the accounts' combined three million Instagram followers, the interaction was completely staged. The "news" accounts duped users into believing the clip was real, considering the video's title: "Cop gets parking ticket and loses his mind!"
The clip circulated initially on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, before users noticed it was staged. Readers added a community note to the Daily Loud X account stating, "This is stage as stated on the creator's website, pointed out by an X user in the comments."
An X user found that the clip originated from an eight-minute video posted by the YouTube account Bodycam Declassified, whose website states, "This content on Body Cam Declassified is created and produced content, not actual bodycam footage from official sources."
The site's content licensing section notes, "Our videos represent original critical creative works that we script, film, edit, and produce ourselves. "
The video "Cop Gets Parking Ticket and Loses His Mind," posted on May 4, received over 130,000 views. Bodycam Declassified's channel description does not mention that the videos are not real police interactions.
"In our channel, we bring you real, unfiltered bodycam footage, offering insight into real-world situations," the description states. "In some cases, we may reenact some elements to clarify key aspects of certain encounters. Every case shared is original and exclusive..."
