New video shows an intense traffic stop that ended with a singer being pulled out of a car and handcuffed in Sunny Isles Beach after police said she refused to get out and was driving with a counterfeit diplomatic license plate.
The viral video posted on Only in Dade Tuesday showed the traffic stop of a woman who had been stopped by police while she was driving an Audi Q5.
The woman, identified as 32-year-old Ceceilia Mercado, is a singer who goes by the name Sessi and has over 195,000 Instagram followers.
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The video, taken by a man who was a passenger in the car, doesn't show the beginning of the stop but the passenger told Only in Dade that the car was stopped for making a wrong turn.
One of the officers tells Mercado to get out of the car but when she refuses, he opens the car door from the inside and grabs her arm.
"Please bring your supervisor now, you're reaching inside our vehicle, I feel threatened! You're reaching inside our vehicle, I feel threatened, I feel threatened, I feel threatened!" the man yells at the officers in the video. "Get off of her right now, get off of her right now...let her go, let her go right now!"
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"It's okay," the woman can be seen telling the passenger, while the officer keeps telling her to get out of the car.
"They have no jurisdiction over you," the man tells her. "She is not a United States citizen, they have no jurisdiction."
Seconds later, the officer pulls Mercado out of the car and she falls to the ground.
"You are going to get fired from your job and she is going to get $250,000," the passenger tells the officers. "I will see you in court, I will see you in court. Hey, if you wanna play, I will see you in court."
The video later shows the officers handcuffing the woman.
"Sessi, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I promise you I will get you out of the court," the passenger tells her.
"All you had to do was comply," an officer tells Mercado.
"I did, I gave you my passport," she replies.
"No you did not, that was not a driver's license," the officer replies.
Sunny Isles Beach Police released a statement about the traffic stop and video, saying it doesn't capture the full incident.
"The video posted online does not capture the full incident from beginning to end,” the statement read. “The female driver shown in the video was stopped by our officers for traffic violations. She then stated she had 'immunity.' She repeatedly refused to comply with officers' orders and was placed in handcuffs.”
After their investigation, it was determined that the diplomatic tag that was affixed to the car was “counterfeit and the female driver was arrested for driving with a counterfeit tag,” the statement said.
According to an arrest report, the plate had the words "diplomat" and "ambassador at large" and was non-expiring.
Mercado told officers the vehicle was registered with the U.S. Department of State, but police contacted a Department of State official who confirmed it wasn't a valid diplomatic tag, the report said.
Records showed Mercado was booked into jail on a counterfeit license plate charge, and was given a $2,500 bond. Attorney information wasn't available.
Hours after bonding out of jail, Mercado went on Instagram live with Only in Dade and insisted her diplomatic tag was legitimate.
"There goes my tag, right there," she said while holding up a document to the camera. "It's registered with the United States Department — look at that — DOT."
The document could not be verified.
In an odd twist, police said that officers were conducting traffic enforcement Wednesday afternoon in the same area where Mercado was arrested on Tuesday and stopped a Maybach that was driven by a man with Mercado and her boyfriend in the back seat.
The Maybach driver has been identified by police as Andres Lopez-Escobar.
Lopez-Escobar was arrested for the same charge as Mercardo, driving with a counterfeit tag, after the car was found with a similar counterfeit diplomatic license plate, police said.
As of Thursday morning, Lopez-Escobar has submitted bond but has an immigration hold and is still at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
