Singer’s Arrest Caught on Video, Sparking Huge Controversy
A video of a site visitors cease in Sunny Isles Seashore that ended with a singer being handcuffed went viral final week. This singer, 32-year-old Cecilia Mercado, often known as Sessi, has over 195,000 Instagram followers.
On the time of the cease, police stated Mercado refused to get out of her Audi Q5 and was driving with a counterfeit diplomatic license tag, in response to Native 10. A Sunny Isles Seashore police officer requested for the singer’s driver’s license, however she handed her passport as a substitute, claiming “immunity.”
An officer asks her to step out of the automobile in video footage captured by Mercado’s passenger. “Please convey your supervisor now, you are reaching inside our automobile, I really feel threatened!” Scott Huss, recognized because the passenger, shouts within the video.
“You are reaching inside our automobile, I really feel threatened, I really feel threatened, I really feel threatened!” Huss yelled. “Get off of her proper now, get off of her proper now.” “They haven’t any jurisdiction over you,” Huss added. “She isn’t a United States citizen, they haven’t any jurisdiction.”
Huss continues to change heated phrases with cops, telling them they’re “going to get fired out of your job, and he or she goes to get $250,000.” Mercado is ripped out of the Audi after she refuses to conform.
She was then seen being put into cuffs, with the officers telling her if she solely “complied,” issues wouldn’t have escalated. “I did. I gave you my passport,” the singer stated.
The police stated Mercado later admitted to having a Florida driver’s license however didn’t reply to an officer’s query about why she had not admitted it earlier than. Sunny Isles Seashore police launched an announcement after the video of her arrest went viral, saying it didn’t seize the entire incident. “The feminine driver proven within the video was stopped by our officers for site visitors violations. She then said she had ‘immunity.’ She repeatedly refused to adjust to officers’ orders and was positioned in handcuffs,” the division stated in a assertion.
“When she offered her passport card, they stated it was an unacceptable type of identification,” Huss instructed Native 10 Information Wednesday. “Nothing ought to get to the purpose the place any person is dragging any person out of auto for a unsuitable left flip.”
An arrest report famous that the plate was marked “diplomat” and “ambassador at giant” and that it was “non-expiring.” A police report said that, regardless of Mercado telling officers the automobile was registered with the U.S. Division of State, an official with the Division of State confirmed that it was not a sound diplomatic tag.
In an interview outdoors the jail on March 13, Mercado confirmed she was a Bronx native and a “United States nationwide.” She was launched on a $2,500 bond. When requested in regards to the pretend plates, she responded that they had been real.
“They don’t seem to be pretend. They’re utterly registered to my personal belief and my personal automobile which, by legislation, I’m allowed to have a automobile underneath a belief,” the singer stated. Prices have been filed in opposition to her for possessing a counterfeit license plate, registration, or sticker on her motorized vehicle.
After leaving jail, Mercado said on an Instagram dwell with Solely in Dade that she is harmless, insisting that her diplomatic tag is genuine. “There goes my tag, proper there,” she stated to the digital camera as she held up a doc in entrance of it. “It is registered with the US Division—have a look at that—DOT.” The doc couldn’t be verified, in response to NBC 6.
On Tuesday, police stopped a Maybach pushed by a person who had been on his technique to choose up Mercado from jail shortly after she had been arrested for driving with a counterfeit tag in Sunny Isles Seashore. A automobile with pretend diplomatic plates picked up Mercado from jail on Wednesday – pushed by her boyfriend, Andres Lopez-Escobar, in response to the New York Publish.
Upon pulling the automobile over, police needed to break open the driving force’s window after he refused to open it. Among the many costs Lopez-Escobar, 22, faces are driving and not using a legitimate license, possessing a counterfeit license plate, motorized vehicle registration, and resisting an officer with out violence, reported the outlet.
A number of weapons had been additionally pulled from the automobile, in response to police. “That they had weapons to the automobile; I simply acquired out of jail,” Mercado said after her driver had been arrested. “This isn’t humorous. That is tousled.”
For the reason that video went viral, Mercado has gained extra fame in South Florida, with some supporting her whereas others criticizing her actions and supporting the police response. Within the wake of the arrest of one other of Mercado’s pals for allegedly driving a automobile with a counterfeit diplomatic license plate, the singer’s id has been additional questioned.
Bronx native Mercado was profiled by the New York media again in 2021. In keeping with the The Bronx Occasions, she “was raised in Fortress Hill by Eddi and Ivania Mercado. Her mother was an occasion coordinator and sang at festivals, and her father was a music producer.
Her first style of the limelight got here at age 5 when she sang at a Puerto Rican Day pageant. Moreover, the article notes that she comes from a “hard-working Cuban and Puerto Rican family” and made “the leap to Los Angeles at 19-years-old hoping to in the future be a star.” Mercado described it as she had performed “something and the whole lot to place myself on the market. I actually lived that artist battle.”
Billboard named her amongst its “20 Latina Artists to Uncover Earlier than 2020 Ends” checklist in November 2020, alongside artists Maria Becerra and Lola Indigo. Sessi at present has 5.28K subscribers on YouTube and greater than 600,000 views on her movies.
Mercado instructed her 195,000 Instagram followers that “false issues” are being stated about her and that she is a “good neighborhood woman,” in response to the Every day Mail. “I can’t quit and stand my floor too many issues occurring this world particularly me, I’ve been such a neighborhood woman and so good to my neighborhood… not okay! I’ve household in NYC police division.”