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Body Cam Footage Shows Alleged ICE Officer Pulled Over for Drunk Driving Racially Profiling Arresting Officer
The man has been charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
Oct 17, 2025
Newly released body camera footage shows a Florida man claiming to be a federal immigration enforcement official racially profiling a police officer who pulled him over on the highway for drunk driving.
The footage, which was published on Thursday by YouTube account "The CrimePiece," shows the arrest of 42-year-old Miami resident Scott Thomas Deiseroth, who was pulled over by officers from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office on August 13.
The footage begins with the officer who pulled Deiseroth over asking him for his identification and asking him if he knew his current location.
Deiseroth reacted belligerently to the officer's questions and told him that he was a federal agent who worked for the Department of Homeland Security. As reported by local news station CBS 12, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office website at one point listed his occupation as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
Deiseroth also told the officer that he was simply trying to get home and informed him that he had his two young sons with him riding in the backseat.
The officer then asked Deiseroth to step out of his car, to which Deiseroth replied, "Are you fucking serious right now?"
After exiting the vehicle, Deiseroth continued to exhibit hostility to the officer's questions, and he repeatedly demanded to know, "Are we really doing this right now?"
The officer then asked him how much he'd had to drink, and Deiseroth replied that he'd had four drinks, without specifying the nature of those drinks.
"Are you guys really trying to fuck me right now?" Deiseroth asked.
The officer informed Deiseroth that he could smell alcohol on him and he wanted to ensure that he was capable of safely driving his vehicle home.
The officer proceeded to administer field sobriety tests. During the tests, another officer came over to ensure that Deiseroth did not stumble while trying to walk a straight line along the side of a busy highway.
Deiseroth then questioned why the second officer, who was Black, was there, and the officer informed him that it was to prevent him from getting hit by oncoming traffic.
Deiseroth responded by repeatedly asking the officer, "Are you Haitian?"
Deiseroth was then informed by the officer administering the sobriety test that "it doesn't matter" where the other officer was from or his heritage.
"Yes it does," Deiseroth replied.
After failing the sobriety tests, Deiseroth was placed in handcuffs and informed that he was being placed under arrest. He then pleaded with the officers to not take him to prison and asked what they were going to do with his two children.
Later, after Deiseroth had been placed in the back of a police car, the officers informed him that his sons' mother—with whom Deiseroth had said earlier he was going through a divorce—would pick up the two children at the police station.
He repeatedly demanded that he be allowed to see his children before being taken to the police station, but the officers did not grant his request.
"Let me see my kids!" he demanded at one point.
"Brother, I really do not want them to see you in the way you're in right now," the officer replied.
Records at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office show that Deiseroth was subsequently charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two felony counts of reckless child endangerment.
A request to the Florida State Attorney's Office in Monroe County to confirm Deiseroth's employment status at the time of the arrest was not returned by press time. The criminal case is pending.
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State Data Reveals Just 0.5% of Florida ICE Detainees Are Gang-Affiliated
“The narrative that immigration enforcement is going after gang members in this country is a lie,” says one expert.
Oct 15, 2025
Amid repeated assertions by administration figures that President Donald Trump's deadly anti-immigrant blitz is "targeting the worst of the worst" among "criminal illegal aliens," critics of the crackdown this week pointed to official data belying those claims.
Take last month's invasion by federal forces of a Chicago apartment complex, during which witnesses said agents broke down doors, terrorized residents including children, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged away dozens of zip-tied people including US citizens and minors. US citizen children were separated from their undocumented parents after the raid.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement calling the raid a "targeted enforcement operation" in an area "frequented" by Tren de Aragua (TDA), a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela that Trump has designated a terrorist group and targeted in a series of extrajudicial high-seas assassinations of people critics contend did not belong to the gang.
The Trump administration initially said that two people arrested during the raid were suspected of being TDA members but then quietly halved that figure to just one, without providing evidence to support even that claim.
This, after Stephen Miller, Trump's white nationalist deputy chief of staff who reportedly once advocated drone strikes on unarmed migrants, painted a picture of a neighborhood overrun by TDA gangsters.
"A few days ago, Stephen Miller was claiming the entire building was 'full of Tren de Aragua terrorists.'"
"The official DHS count of Tren de Aragua members arrested in the Chicago apartment raid has now dropped down to just ONE," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the advocacy group American Immigration Council, said on social media Tuesday. "A few days ago, Stephen Miller was claiming the entire building was 'full of Tren de Aragua terrorists.'"
Meanwhile in Florida, where Trump administration officials and Republicans including Gov. Ron DeSantis claim that a large percentage of undocumented people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement are violent criminals, just 25 people—or 0.5% of arrested undocumented individuals—have known gang affiliations, according to the state's own crime statistics.
"The narrative that immigration enforcement is going after gang members in this country is a lie," said Florida immigration advocate and Center for Community Change Action fellow Thomas Kennedy.
Data show that more than 7 in 10 people detained nationwide by ICE as of last month had no criminal conviction, and many of those who had convictions committed only minor offenses such as marijuana possession or traffic infractions. As of mid-August, two-thirds of people deported had no criminal convictions, according to government data reported by The Marshall Project.
Testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing earlier this year, former ICE Chief of Staff Jason Houser described the administration's crackdown as “designed for media optics rather than public safety.”
“When resources are diverted toward the arrest of low-priority individuals, enforcement becomes a dragnet,” Houser said. “That may generate high arrest numbers for press releases, but it pulls ICE personnel away from complex, high-risk cases that improve public safety. It creates a false sense of security while leaving human trafficking, narcotics operations, and violent criminal networks less disrupted.”
"This misalignment of mission isn’t just inefficient—it’s dangerous," he added. "When officers are used as blunt instruments of fear rather than precision tools of public safety, we create a more chaotic and combative environment for them to operate in. We reduce their ability to engage local partners, obtain reliable intelligence, and build cases that will stand up in court."
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South Florida Jews Organizing for Palestinian Justice: Reality Defies Reputation
The visibility of anti-Zionist organizing throughout South Florida breaks the normalization of mainstream Jewish and other support for Israel and will continue to do so.
Oct 09, 2025
The actual reality of organizing for Palestinian justice in South Florida defies the region’s reputation of near unanimous support for Israel and its genocide against the Palestinian people. And the belief that all Jewish people in South Florida support Israel (it’s almost a mantra) is also not reflective of the full picture.
Joining with a coalition of groups committed to justice—Palestinian, Muslim, student, socialist, and others—Jewish organizing for Palestinian justice in South Florida takes multiple forms. Its Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapter (of which this author is part) is unabashedly anti-Zionist, abolitionist, and socialist and stands firmly with Indigenous-led organizing (most recently against the Everglades Concentration Camp), queer and trans liberation, and disability justice. Part of what makes this work noteworthy is that it is happening in a state, with its reactionary governor, Ron DeSantis, at the helm, that is a step ahead of much of the country in its excessively repressive climate and policies. Though we know the rest of the country seems not to be far behind.
Community education is central to the group’s commitments, especially as more and more people are joining, rooted in the understanding that we are all learners and teachers. In ongoing workshops such as "SWANA Jews and Zionism After 1948 and in the 20th Century"; "The History and Current Day Reality of the ADL"; and "The Palestinian Nakba," participants meet outside (Covid-19 safety is a priority!) to learn together and to deepen and strengthen ongoing organizing. Jewish holidays are also observed within an anti-Zionist framework, often by the ocean, with learning including “Engineered Famine: Israel’s Starvation of Gaza–a Teach-in, Havdalah, and Solidarity Fast” and “An Anti-Zionist Shabbat Teach-in on Antisemitism from a Collective Liberation Framework.”
Most recently, one of the community’s areas of focus has been on challenging the fervent support for genocide in the rabidly pro-Zionist Miami Beach City Commission. Many across the country, and even beyond, followed the city’s fight with the local arts theatre, O Cinema, for showing the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which was one chapter in an ongoing battle with the city’s mayor and City Commission in their attempts to censor criticism of Israel and its ongoing violence against the Palestinian people.
Contrary to what some may assume in South Florida’s political climate, activists have succeeded in being visible in the media and bringing these issues into the public eye.
The City of Miami Beach’s support for Israeli apartheid shows up in myriad ways: It donated an ambulance to Israel (smack in the middle of the genocide), has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into Israel bonds, and adopted a resolution that prohibited the city from hiring contractors who refused to do business with Israel. At City Commission meetings, during the space for public comment, as residents stand up to speak against the city’s support for genocide, the mayor and commissioners consistently shut down opposition by turning off the mics and then ranting on and on in support of Israel. They accuse speakers of being antisemitic and invited the Consul General of Israel to give an invocation, whose words, in the middle of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza, included, “We lift up the brave soldiers of the IDF.”
That has not deterred the community’s very visible presence and opposition at these hearings and in the streets.
But the Miami Beach commissioners and mayor didn’t just stop there. As a result of the ongoing organizing in support of Palestinian justice, the city instituted an anti-protest ordinance that denies the constitutional right to protest. After the ordinance was enacted, when activists attempted to protest at the Convention Center where large numbers of people have gathered for Art Basel and the Aspen Ideas Climate Festival, the Miami Beach Police Department barred protesters from gathering on the Convention Center sidewalk in violation of their constitutionally protected right of free speech.
In response, Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare the anti-protest ordinance and the actions of the Miami Beach Police Department unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment rights of its members.
“The First Amendment protects the right to protest in public places, including public sidewalks. It is for the protesters, not the mayor, the City Commission, nor the police, to determine where that right may be exercised, “ said Alan Levine, a member of the legal team representing Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida.
Another critical and vocal area of organizing among Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida and other local advocates is its Break the Bonds Miami campaign, devoted to challenging the county’s investments in Israel Bonds. Just recently, the campaign released a new report based on over 700 survey responses from Miami-Dade County residents, examining public opinion of the county’s $151 million investment in Israel Bonds. The findings show strong opposition to these investments and support for redirecting funds away from genocide toward much-needed local priorities.
“As a Jewish resident of Miami-Dade, I don't believe the county should be investing in a country committing a horrific genocide and starvation campaign…The $151 million Miami-Dade has invested in Israel Bonds should be redirected to empower our local community to flourish, not buy bombs and guns for Israel’s military to kill children, journalists, and doctors," said Hayley Margolis, a JVP South Florida member leader and Miami Dade County resident, at a recent press conference releasing the report.
Contrary to what some may assume in South Florida’s political climate, activists have succeeded in being visible in the media and bringing these issues into the public eye. The protests, actions, and campaign have been well-covered on TV and in print media, and numbers of opinion pieces have been published in all the local papers. The visibility of anti-Zionist organizing throughout South Florida breaks the normalization of mainstream Jewish and other support for Israel and will continue to do so. As the JVP South Florida chapter reiterates in all its messaging: “We will not be silent, and we will not be silenced.”
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