Caught on Camera: DA Sandra Doorley defies police orders in traffic stop

In a story published Friday morning in the Democrat and Chronicle, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley acknowledged to D&C reporter Gary Craig that there was friction in her interaction with a Webster police officer during a Monday traffic stop for speeding.

On Friday afternoon, based on a Freedom of Information Law request, the Webster Police Department released video from the body-worn camera of the officer, Cameron Crisafulli, and of other officers who responded to the scene.

It shows a highly tense exchange with Doorley refusing to follow Officer Crisafulli’s commands and cursing at him while wandering in and out of the garage of her home and at one point entering her home on Fallen Leaf Terrace in Webster, where the stop ended.

After Doorley swears at Crisafulli, he says, “I don’t know why you’re acting like this toward me,” pointing out that she should have stopped on Phillips Road, where the officer, with his emergency lights activated, tried to pull her over after clocking her going 55 mph in a 35 mph zone around 5:30 p.m.

Instead of stopping, Doorley continued on to her residence about half a mile away in a subdivision off Phillips Road because, she told Craig, there was less traffic there.

In the footage, when Crisafulli asks her why she didn't pull over, she says, sounding exasperated, “Because I didn't feel like stopping on Phillips Road at 5:30.”

She told Craig that she called Webster Police Chief Dennis Kohlmeier from her car with Crisafulli behind her.

She said she wanted the chief to tell the officer who she was so he would know there was no possible danger to him after the stop since she did not stop immediately.

During her heated conversation with Crisafulli captured on video, she calls Kohlmeier again and says, “Can you please tell him to leave me alone?”

At one point, Doorley asks Crisafulli how she would have known he was trying to pull her over and not someone else.

Because, he says, “I was right behind you.”

As the argument continues, he asks, “What is that you’re so against what I’m doing? I’m doing my job. You say you’re a DA?”

She replies, “I’m the DA … I’m the DA of Monroe County.”

“I understand that,” says Crisafulli, who eventually calls for a supervisor to the scene. “But that doesn’t give you the right to go 55 in a 35.”

Doorley asks Crisafulli if he knows what she has been dealing with all day and then tells him: three homicides in the city of Rochester.

She asks, “Do you think I really care if I was going 20 miles over the speed limit?”

At the end of the 26-minute video from Crisafulli's body-cam, Doorley, visibly more calm, accepts the traffic ticket.

In a statement issued Thursday, she wrote: “By 1:00PM (Tuesday), I pled guilty and sent the ticket to the Webster Town Court because I believe in accepting responsibility for my actions and had no intention of using my position to receive a benefit. Nobody, including your District Attorney, is above the rule of law, even traffic laws.”

Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers general assignments. Send story tips to [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @MarciaGreenwood.