Video shows stunned father, daughter held at gunpoint by Pinellas deputies during wrongful traffic stop
LARGO, Fla. - Newly released video from Pinellas County deputies' body cameras and dashboard cameras show the wrongful traffic stop that terrified a father and his teenage daughter.
According to the incident report from the New Year's Day encounter, a deputy ran a license plate on a newer modeled Kia Forte and it came back stolen.
The video shows several deputies arriving at the scene with their guns drawn, ordering the driver, Jason Frederico, out of the car, on his knees and into handcuffs.
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Once in the patrol car, however, Frederico sounded stunned and pleaded for an explanation, while begging deputies to listen. They were now pointing their guns at his 16-year-old daughter, who suffers from epilepsy, and detaining her too.
"Can I ask what's going on?" Frederico can be heard asking. "She's a special needs child! What are you doing?!"
Less than 10 minutes later, deputies realized they'd made a mistake: the deputy who made the initial traffic stop had a typo when he searched Frederico's tag.
Pinellas County Sheriff's Office videos show Jason Frederico and his teen daughter being held at gunpoint after their car was mistakenly identified as stolen.
One deputy can be heard describing it as "user error" to Frederico.
As deputies let the father and daughter out of handcuffs, one expressed her frustration with the mistake.
"This is what I'm (expletive) talking about, people on this (expletive) shift not knowing what they're doing," the deputy said.
Pinellas County Sheriff's Office videos show Jason Frederico and his teen daughter being held at gunpoint after their car was mistakenly identified as stolen.
The deputy who made the error, meanwhile, initially sounded shocked and then defensive when confronted by another deputy.
"People make mistakes," he said.
T.J. Grimaldi, the family's attorney, released the videos to FOX 13 and said this is a situation that never should have happened.
"Mistakes happen, but lives are at stake when mistakes happen," Grimaldi said. "Check your own work to make sure that you're not putting innocent civilians' lives in danger, because if they do one wrong move, they're shot."
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Grimaldi said the family is considering filing a lawsuit.
"Whether your standard operating procedures need to be changed, whether the officers that aren't trained need to be removed from the force, there needs to be some accountability."
"It's traumatizing for her and it's a sad situation," Frederico, 54, added during an interview in April. "I know being a cop is hard today, but when you have a 16-year-old girl, myself, just going about your everyday business and it turns to this, it's unfathomable."
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office declined to comment on the case, citing pending litigation.
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