Body-camera footage of a 19-year-old Florida nursing student being arrested beside her Mustang has continued to resurface online since the encounter took place in New Smyrna Beach on Oct. 3, 2025.
Versions of the footage have circulated repeatedly, including a June 2026 upload by the Cops on Cam YouTube channel. The video captures the arrest, the driver’s argument over whether she had been required to stop, and a memorable phone call with her father after she was placed in handcuffs.
Since then, the criminal case has also worked its way through the Volusia County court system and was concluded in June 2026.
The encounter began while New Smyrna Beach Police Officer Scott Riera was investigating an unrelated hit-and-run crash on Pioneer Trail. Riera said he heard a 2024 Ford Mustang GT approaching and saw it cross the double yellow line to pass another vehicle.
Riera said the Mustang was traveling about 60 mph in a 40 mph zone.
She Kept Going
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Riera wrote that he stepped onto the asphalt shoulder and raised his hand toward the approaching Mustang in an effort to get the driver to stop. He said he stayed out of the travel lane because he was concerned about being struck.
The Mustang continued past him.
Riera later found Palmieri at an apartment complex near the white Mustang and placed her in handcuffs.
“Put your hands behind your back; you’re under arrest for fleeing and eluding law enforcement,” he told her.
Palmieri argued that she did not have to stop because Riera had been standing on foot rather than attempting a traffic stop from a patrol vehicle with emergency lights activated.
Riera disagreed.
“I absolutely don’t need to have, like, sirens activated,” he told her. “I’m a fully uniformed law enforcement officer telling you to stop.”
Florida Statute 316.1935(1) makes it a third-degree felony for a driver who knows a duly authorized law enforcement officer has ordered the vehicle to stop and willfully refuses or fails to do so.
That subsection does not require the officer to be inside a marked patrol vehicle with lights and sirens activated.
Palmieri was booked on the felony charge with bond set at $2,500.
Then She Called Dad
As police prepared to tow the Mustang, Palmieri asked to call her father.
During the conversation, she disputed the officer’s description of her driving and tried to explain what had happened. Riera eventually spoke with her father himself.
The reaction she received was not especially sympathetic.
Her father asked to be placed on speakerphone and criticized both her driving and the way she was speaking to the officers.
“Quiet, quiet! Quiet up, or you’ll stay in that place for a week,” he told her.
“You’re being cocky; you’re not even being polite; you’re not even using manners,” he continued.
He then warned her that the arrest could jeopardize the nursing career she was working toward.
The phone call became one of the most memorable parts of the footage. What happened in court afterward received far less attention.
The Case Had a Different Ending
Palmieri’s argument during the arrest was that she had not understood Riera’s gesture as a lawful order requiring her to stop.
That issue mattered because the statute under which she was charged turns in part on whether the driver knew an authorized law enforcement officer had ordered the vehicle to stop and then willfully refused.
Public Volusia County court records show the felony case was closed with a nolle prosequi on June 18, 2026.
That means prosecutors chose not to continue the prosecution.
The public court record does not explain why the State Attorney’s Office dropped the charge. Some later retellings have attributed the result to alleged procedural or constitutional problems during the arrest, but the available docket does not establish that as the reason.
A separate citation for passing in a no-passing zone was dismissed on March 18, 2026.
So the court record ultimately gives the circulating bodycam footage a different ending from the one viewers see on screen. Palmieri was arrested on a felony fleeing-and-eluding charge beside her Mustang, but the available records show both matters ended without a conviction.