Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez says he and his family were held on the side of the road for about 45 minutes on June 19 while a police officer wrote him four traffic citations — and he believes it happened because he had been asking pointed questions about an internal affairs case involving the officer who pulled him over. The stop, in South Beach, ended with Suarez cited for failing to provide proper registration, driving with an expired registration, not wearing a seatbelt, and texting while driving.
According to the Miami Herald, whose reporting forms the bulk of what's known about the incident, Suarez called Police Chief Wayne Jones directly during the stop to ask why it was taking so long. Jones then called the district captain for the area to look into what was happening, and separately asked subordinates to make sure the stop was handled appropriately — though Jones has said he did not direct or imply that Suarez should receive different treatment than any other member of the public, and department spokesperson Christopher Bess said Jones never directed anyone to drop the citations.
The officer who issued the tickets, Pedro Socarras, is no stranger to Suarez. The commissioner had filed a public-records request concerning Socarras and other officers shortly after the traffic stop, and Suarez has said he does not believe it was a coincidence that Socarras stopped his family right after he began questioning an internal affairs case tied to the officer.
A Department Already Under Scrutiny
Socarras was one of four officers investigated by Miami Beach police for exchanging sexually explicit WhatsApp pictures and videos, in an inquiry that covered exchanges dating back to 2016. Major Steven Feldman, also implicated in that probe, had been investigated by the FBI after three of the WhatsApp messages were flagged as child pornography following an alleged Dropbox upload — but Feldman was never charged in that federal investigation, as detailed in earlier Hoodline reporting on the FBI cloud hanging over his career. Socarras, Feldman, and two other officers ultimately received internal letters of reprimand and no other discipline.
Feldman has since been promoted to major and is considered a possible successor to Jones as police chief when Jones eventually retires. Suarez requested a city inspector general review of the internal affairs investigation on July 18, and it remains an open question whether that office will act on the request.
Miami Beach police union president Bobby Hernandez pushed back hard on Suarez's version of events, accusing the commissioner of seeking preferential treatment and intimidating law enforcement officers. Hernandez said the traffic stop was delayed because the golf-cart's license plate did not match its registration, and he told the Miami Herald that Socarras had confided in him that he feared retaliation if he did not drop the citations.
Where the 45 Minutes Actually Went
Suarez has described the stop somewhat differently in his own account, saying the officer kept his family on the roadside for roughly 50 minutes before issuing the four citations — a discrepancy from the 45-minute figure cited elsewhere in reporting on the incident. Under Florida law, the distinction between a golf cart and a low-speed vehicle matters here: Florida Statute 316.2122 requires low-speed vehicles capable of 20 to 25 mph to carry full titling, registration, insurance, seat belts, and a VIN to legally use roads with speed limits up to 35 mph, while standard golf carts, which top out at 20 mph, generally don't require registration or seat belts at all, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That legal distinction underlies why registration-related citations were even possible during the stop.
County records show the citation cases are now closed and that Suarez paid the fines for all four. The Miami Beach Police Department has not released body-camera footage of the stop despite a Miami Herald request, leaving the public without independent video of what happened during those roadside minutes.
A Commissioner With a Combative Track Record
Suarez was elected to the Miami Beach City Commission in 2023 as a self-funded political outsider, defeating hotelier Mitch Novick with 52.5% of the vote on a platform of aggressive quality-of-life enforcement, according to WLRN. He has championed measures to prevent people from living on boats in Biscayne Bay, helping craft the state legislation Governor Ron DeSantis signed in May 2025 limiting overnight anchoring to 30 days every six months, and he has also championed a crackdown on outdoor sleeping in the city.
Suarez has clashed with Jones before. In March 2024, he confronted the chief over police presence at a pro-Palestinian protest outside a synagogue in Miami Beach, at one point saying that if it had been a KKK rally, things would have been handled differently. Jones responded that he had unwavering commitment to the safety and well-being of every Miami Beach resident, including the Jewish community.
This isn't the first time Suarez's rhetoric on policing has raised eyebrows. He has said that maybe Miami Beach police should issue 160,000 traffic tickets annually — a dramatic jump from the roughly 60,000 tickets the department currently writes each year.
Pay, Overtime and Budget Fights
Since the traffic stop, Suarez has pushed a series of measures touching police finances and conduct. He proposed an online portal listing the pay of every Miami Beach city employee, which the city approved on June 24 and which went live in early July; the portal showed that Miami Beach police and fire officials took home nearly half a million dollars in 2025 despite base salaries below $200,000. Suarez has pledged to address excessive overtime through limits, fatigue-management standards, higher-level approvals and public reporting, framing it against a department that provides public safety for hundreds of special events each year.
He placed an agenda item on police and fire overtime practices for the July 22 commission meeting, though it was not called for discussion that day. Suarez also sponsored a separate agenda item addressing police employee conduct policies, disciplinary standards and public trust safeguards. Meanwhile, Miami Beach city departments have been directed to prepare budgets with 5% operating-cost reductions, even as commissioners voted to restore proposed eliminated sworn police positions to the budget — a final version of which will be finalized later this year.
Jones' standing with the rest of the commission looks far different from his standing with Suarez. As Hoodline reported in February, commissioners voted 7-0 in March to extend Jones' participation in the city's Deferred Retirement Option Plan from eight to ten years, keeping him in place through August 2028 — a move that came as department statistics presented to the commission showed a 9% decrease in violent crime, a 19% drop in property crime, and a 75% reduction in homicides under his leadership. Bess, the department spokesperson, has pointed to those same trends, saying the department has experienced significant crime reductions and faster emergency response times. Jones became Miami Beach's first Black police chief in September 2023 after a unanimous commission confirmation.
