- Leslie Socolov accosted a man, calling him a “stupid Jew,” in a video shared on Twitter.
- Socolov, who wore a Miami-Dade Police Department jacket, is a retired employee of the department.
- In 2015, she reportedly killed a veteran, but was not prosecuted due to a Florida hit-and-run law.
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A woman wearing a Miami-Dade Homicide jacket got out of her car outside a Boca Raton, Florida, restaurant Satuday to accost another driver, telling him, “Just because you’re Jewish and a Democrat doesn’t give you the right to stay there.”
The woman, identified as Leslie Socolov, worked for the Miami-Dade Police Department for close to 20 years in a civilian role as a stenographer for the homicide unit, the Miami Herald reported. Socolov, whom the police department said has retired, was responsible for the death of a homeless man in a 2015 hit-and-run, according to local news outlets.
“Move your f—-ing car you stupid Jew,” Socolov, 64, appears to say in the video, also calling him a “motherf—ing piece of s—.” She yelled at the man because he had parked his car behind hers outside of the restaurant, the Miami New Times reported. Socolov told the Miami Herald in an interview that she herself is Jewish.
The video, which was posted on Twitter by StopAntisemitism.org, a website that posts stories of anti-Semitic incidents, has more than 90,000 views as of Thursday afternoon.
Socolov was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on DUI and disorderly intoxication charges early Sunday morning, according to arrest records reviewed by Insider. She was released on bond hours later.
—StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 3, 2021
The Miami-Dade Police Department, Socolov's former employer, said in a tweet Tuesday that the office's Homeland Security Bureau was investigating the video in which she wears the department jacket. "This hateful speech is appalling and does not represent the values of the MDPD," the tweet said.
Detective Argemis Colome of the Miami-Dade Police Department told Insider in an email that Socolov's employment with the police department ended in November 2020.
"The Homeland Security Bureau is routinely tasked with investigations related to Hate (Anti-Semitic) crimes," Colome told Insider. Colome said that the department is no longer involved in the investigation after determining that the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office, which covers the jurisdiction where the incident took place, "had successfully handled" it.
In her interview with the Miami Herald, Socolov said that the person she yelled at had "made their own f---ing parking space! They wouldn't move because they're holier than thou." Socolov told the Miami Herald that she was being "persecuted" and claimed that she said "stupid you," rather than "stupid Jew," in the video.
Sunday's arrest wasn't Socolov's first brush on the other side of law enforcement. In May 2015, late at night, she called her insurance company after hitting something with her car in Aventura. The next day, she turned herself into police when she learned that she had actually killed Richard Flaherty, a military veteran who was homeless at the time, the Miami New Times reported in 2017.
Due to a hit-and-run law, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office did not prosecute Socolov for her role in the death. Earlier that year, the state's Supreme Court ruled that drivers could not be prosecuted "for leaving the scene of an accident" if they were unaware that they hit a person, the Associated Press reported in February 2015.
Socolov did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment.