Video shows stop of Olympian Sha'Carri Richardson for driving over 100 mph in Florida
New body camera footage shows Olympic gold medalist Sha’Carri Richardson being pulled over before she was arrested and charged with speeding over 100 mph in Florida.
Richardson was arrested for allegedly going 104 mph on a parkway just outside of Orlando on Thursday. A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said she was “dangerously tailgating and traveling across lanes of travel to pass other motorists.”
The bodycam video shows a sheriff’s office sergeant pursuing Richardson’s vehicle and noting that she’s going 104 mph at one point.
“I would wipe that smile off your face,” the sergeant says as he approaches Richardson, who’s in the driver’s seat of the car.
Richardson tries to explain that she had low pressure in a rear tire but the sergeant isn’t having it.
“You’re driving at 104 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone with sub par equipment, flashing people to get out of your way, following too close, using every lane to pass everybody, cutting me off, passing a car on the inside shoulder with their hazard lights on. You’re going to jail for dangerous and excessive speeding,” he says.
“I’m so sorry, I did not mean to do that, my phone, I didn’t even know my car was speeding,” Richard says.
“That’s why they gave you a speedometer,” the sergeant responds.
“I really do not want to go to jail,” Richardson tells the sergeant.
“Most people don’t, but you’ve gotta think about that before you do the speeding,” he replies.
The sergeant asks for her license and registration and she continues to apologize.
“I am a law abiding citizen, I have my ID, my insurance, my phone, there was no intentions of me speeding today,” Richardson says in the video. “Please work with me.”
“I don’t know what ‘work with me’ means,” the sergeant responds.
Richardson continues to beg to not go to jail, but the sergeant tells her nothing she says will change the outcome.
“Make some phone calls and let people know that you’re gonna have a $500 bond,” the sergeant says.
The 25-year-old sprinter is one of the fastest women of all time, winning a silver medal in the 100 meters in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, and gold in the 4×100 relay that same year. Richardson’s Olympic medals came after she was disqualified from the 2020 Olympics when she tested positive for chemicals found in marijuana.
Last year, Richardson issued a public apology to her boyfriend, Christian Coleman, after she was arrested on a fourth-degree domestic violence offense for allegedly assaulting Coleman at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in July.
