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The tense exchange between Monroe County DA Sandra Doorley and a Webster Police Department officer on Monday, April 22, was captured in a 26-minute video recorded by the officer’s body camera.
In the footage, the officer is seen approaching Doorley’s garage moments after she parked her SUV after ignoring his attempts to stop her for speeding.
“I’m sorry, I’m the DA. I was going 55 coming home from work,” Doorley tells the officer as he approaches.
“Fifty-five in a 35,” the officer responds, to which Doorley quips, “I don’t really care.”
Doorley then calls Webster Police Chief Dennis Kohlmeier and asks if he can “please tell him to leave me alone.”
At another point in the video, Doorley walks into her garage and the officer orders her to remain outside.
“No I’m not staying over here,” she yells at him.
Doorley then hands her phone to the officer and tells him to “talk to Dennis,” at which point he explains his reasoning for stopping her to Kohlmeier.
Throughout the phone call, Doorley repeatedly enters her home, ignoring the officer’s commands to stay outside.
When he reminds her that it’s a traffic stop and that she can’t just go inside, Doorley says she understands the law better than him.
The officer then radios to request a supervisor to the scene, at which point Doorley tells the officer to “get out of my (expletive) house.”
Later in the clip, Doorley claims she didn’t know the officer was attempting to stop her despite the fact that he was directly behind her vehicle with his lights and sirens on.
“I didn’t know you were stopping me, there was lots of other people on the road,” she says.
The officer again tells her to step outside, to which she says, “I’m not going to.”
“What is the reason you’re so against what I’m doing? I’m doing my job,” the officer tells her. “You say you’re a DA?”
“I am the DA, okay?” Doorley tells him before grabbing her badge out of her SUV. “I am the DA of Monroe County.”
The officer tells her that he doesn’t understand her hostility toward him and that he’s just doing his job, to which Doorley responds, “You’re being an (expletive).”
When the officer reminds Doorley that she admitted to speeding, she again says she doesn’t care and suggests that her position as DA will shield her from punishment.
“I don’t really care. I don’t really care,” she says. “If you give me a traffic ticket that’s fine. I’m the one who prosecutes it okay? Just go ahead and do it.”
Later in the clip, Doorley claimed she was speeding after a stressful day at work.
“Do you think I really care if I was going 20 miles over the speed limit?” she says before again refusing the officer’s commands to step outside of the garage.
“I'm the one that’s going to prosecute myself. You know what I’ll do with the ticket?” she asks the officer, laughing.
After speaking with the officer’s supervisor, Doorley was issued a speeding ticket for allegedly driving 55 in a 35.
“It’s fine. I’ll take care of it since I’ll be prosecuting myself,” she tells the officer.
The interaction has since gone viral on social media, prompting Doorley to issue a video apology on Monday, April 29.
In the nearly two-minute clip, she blamed her behavior on being stressed by three homicide cases she was working on, as well as her husband’s “frightening” medical concern that they had learned about hours earlier.
“Last Monday, I failed you and the standards that I hold myself to, and for that I am so sorry,” Doorley said. “What I did was wrong. No excuses.”
She went on to acknowledge that she “didn’t treat this officer with the respect that he deserved.”
“All police officers deserve respect,” she added. “I am truly and sincerely sorry.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul referred the incident to the Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct and blasted Doorley for “claiming she is above the law, attempting to use her public office to evade responsibility, and acting unprofessionally towards a police officer…”
“In doing so, she was in contravention of her responsibility as a district attorney and undermined her ability to hold others accountable for her violating the law,” Hochul said.
Despite a flood of calls for Doorley’s resignation, Monroe County GOP Chair Patrick Reilly said she “will not be going anywhere.”
“Nobody is perfect, and everyone has a bad day, “Reilly said in a statement. “District Attorney Doorley has atoned, should not, and will not be going anywhere, and the Monroe County Republican Party continues to fully stand behind her and her office’s mission and the dedicated members of the Webster Police Department.”
Doorley was first elected in January 2012 and is the first woman to hold the office. She attended the University at Albany and received her law degree from Syracuse University.
Watch video of the encounter here.
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