A Medford police detective has been placed on administrative leave after he was caught on video threatening to “blow a hole through your f—ing head” while pulling over a driver who drove the wrong way at a traffic circle.
Medford Police Chief Leo Sacco confirmed to Boston.com that the man in the video was Medford Police Detective Stephen Lebert.
“He’s a 30-year member of the department and works in our detective division,” Sacco said. “He’s a very effective police officer but last night’s incident that’s on video, at least that portion of the video that I saw, is troubling to say the least.”
Recorded using a dashboard camera, the video was posted by user “basedboston,” who spoke to Boston.com by phone on Monday. Mike, 25, a software developer who lives in Malden, Mass., said he wasn’t comfortable providing his last name. The traffic stop happened on Sunday night when he got lost and accidentally drove the wrong way down an unfamiliar one-way street at a traffic circle in Medford, Mike said.
Mike said he had recently purchased the dashboard camera after another car struck him at a red light. He was hoping to protect himself in the event of another accident. He described the encounter in a description of the video:
“Driving home today I got lost and made a wrong turn. In an unfamiliar area I drove slowly but made the mistake of not seeing a poorly marked rotary. I stopped midway through it when I realized I screwed up and fortunately there were no close calls or potential accidents. Only a single oncoming car (not the medford cop/detective in the video, he was on the other side) that had fully stopped before the rotary seeing my stupid mistake. After I stopped and realized it was too late I just continued out of the way and back onto the correct road in front of me. This man starts tailgating me and puts his high beams on in his Red Chevy Silverado pick up truck. He then yells how I’m an asshole and that he is going to hurt me, and well the rest is in the video.
The date is incorrect as my dashcam apparently was set wrong. I very rarely ever need to pull videos off of it over the period of time I’ve owned it and just didn’t notice the date mistake. The time however is right”
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Cop caught on dash cam threatening to ‘blow a hole’ through driver’s head