By Claude Brodesser-Akner | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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A routine traffic stop goes bonkers

It started out as a routine traffic stop for an obscured out-of-state license plate. The driver had a valid license, but couldn't find the vehicle's insurance card or registration — and so the car was impounded.

But one of the passengers was the daughter of Caren Z. Turner, a commissioner at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she oversaw its ethics panel (until her firing, that is, on Monday).

After Turner's daughter called mom for a ride home, things took a major turn for the crazy. And when the Tenafly police released a dashcam video of the traffic stop on Tuesday, well, the world united in shared outrage over the alternately appalling, obnoxious and plainly inexplicable behavior of now ex-Commissioner Caren Turner.

Call it the ultimate "Do you know who I am" PR disaster. Call it privilege run amok. Call it high comedy and/or low tragedy.

But whatever you call it, you can't look away. Herewith, our Zapruder-style, frame-by-dashcam-frame analysis of how things went so wrong, so fast.

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Moment One: 'Alright, you guys are all set.'

Less than a minute into the Tenafly Police dashcam video, the police officer is heard saying, "Alright, so you guys are all set."

The driver has been issued a summons, the car's going to be impounded, but he and his three passengers are free to go. If someone had one called an Uber, none of what happened next ever would have happened.

But that didn't happen. Instead one of the passengers called her mom. Big mistake.

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Moment Two: "What's the problem?"

After arriving in her Mercedes sedan — but of course! — yet before even greeting anyone or identifying herself as a Commissioner at the Port Authority, Turner demands to know what's going on.

"What's the problem?" she asks the officers, handing out Port Authority business cards. Because who doesn't hand out their business card during a traffic stop?

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Moment Three: 'Friend of the Mayor'

Twenty seconds after arriving, Caren Turner has identified herself by name.

One officer takes a proffered business card, but lead officer declines, saying, "I don't need that." Amen to that, brother.

Turner then delivers her first name-drop, saying that she's there not just as their ride, but "as a concerned citizen, and a friend of the mayor."

Tenafly's longtime mayor, Peter Rustin confirmed on Tuesday that he is a personal friend of Turner.

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Moment Four: 'No, no, no! I need to know!'

Turner soon begins demanding to know why the driver was stopped. Police explain that the stop doesn't concern her since all the passengers are adults, and direct her to inquire of the driver.

Turner becomes more agitated, insisting, "I need to know" why the stop occurred. The astonishing patience of the Tenafly officers is only beginning to be tested.

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Moment Five: She flashes her badge

Turner digs in, now insisting she be informed of the charges, saying, "I'm involved. Trust me. I'm very involved."

In the first of a number of "Oh, no she didn't ... oh, yes she did" moments, she then displays her gold Port Authority badge, which appears to be every bit as shiny and useless as Commissioner Gordon's badge in "Batman."

The officers are unmoved, with one saying, "We don't need to see credentials here."

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Moment Six: 'I am a commissioner of the Port Authority.'

As the officer examines the gold shield, Turner, wearing a plum colored, hooded vest, lowers her voice somewhat and answers, "I am a commissioner of the Port Authority...and I'm heading up over 4,000 police officers."

However, there are only 1,600 officers employed at the Port Authority. And she is not directly in charge of them in any way, shape or form.

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Moment Seven: 'Don't call me 'Miss,' I'm 'Commissioner!'

Turner demands that she should be told what the "problem" is.

But when the officer explains "there's no problem...it's an unregistered vehicle." Turner becomes combative.

"Don't call me 'Miss,' I'm "Commissioner,' thank you," said Turner, holding up her badge.

A moment later, however, the officer reverts back to his old form of address: "Miss, this does not involve you."

If ever there were a time for Turner to walk away and salvage her reputation, it would be now. She does not walk away.

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Moment Eight: Name dropping...Yale?

Turner begins to complain that the officers have a duty to tell her what charges have been brought against the driver of the vehicle. (They do not.)

"I got four people who are coming back to my house, including people who live in New Haven, attending Yale graduate school, a PhD student," says Turner.

The first officer, perhaps because this is a total non-sequitur, is unmoved. The second officer looks on, a look of bemused bafflement on his face. Graduates of Yale University around the world, already having to deal with the fact that everyone thinks they are snobs, let out a collective groan.

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Moment Nine: 'I will be in with the police commissioner...'

Things now get heated, as Turner threatens to go over their heads to their boss.

"Trust me, I will be in with the police commissioner of Tenafly," warns Turner.

Oh, no she didn't.

Oh, yes she did.

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Moment Ten: 'I was here for your graduation..."

Things now take a turn for the surreal as Turner, frustrated, claims she'd attended the officers' graduation ceremony at the police academy.

"What graduation? What are you talking about?" asks the officer, incredulously.

"OK, never mind," said Turner.

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Moment Eleven: 'It's not they. It's not...them.'

At one point, Turner seems to become confused.

Told to ask the driver for the reason for the stop, she stammers, "It's not they. It's not...them."

Finally, she begins to berate the officers.

"I'm very disappointed in the way you're acting."

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Moment Twelve: 'You know Louis What's-His-Name?'

After mentioning her friendship with the mayor, Turner then begins to name drop officers within the Tenafly police department's traffic division. Except it's never a good look to name drop when you don't actually know the person's name.

"I know Louis, what's his name? Schmaradaski?" Turner asks, apparently referring to Tenafly police traffic officer Louis Smaragdakis.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asks Officer Savitsky, utterly bewildered, and now officially The Most Patient Person in the Universe.

"Well, I'm just telling you who I am," answers Turner.

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Moment Thirteen: 'You may shut the f--- up.'

Turner is told to leave the roadside to ensure her safety. At this, she begins to verbally berate the officers as "pathetic" and unleashes a torrent of profanity.

"You may take them," says the officer, gesturing to the vehicle's driver and passengers.

"You may not tell me when to take my child," said Turner. "You may shut the f--- up and not tell me when I may take my kid, and her friends, who are PhD students at MIT and Yale. You may tell me nothing."

Poor MIT, how did they get dragged into this mess?

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Moment Fourteen: 'I will be speaking to the chief of police.'

Turner now threatens to speak not just to the chief of police, but to the mayor of Tenafly, Peter Rustin, as well.

Unfazed, the officer offers his own badge number and even his first name.

"Badge number 540. Just so there's no discrepancies," says the officer, Matt Savitsky, with the calm righteousness of a man who knows all of this is being filmed, and that Commissioner Turner is not going to come out of this one looking good.

"I've got all your information, sweetheart," responds Turner, "I know Sikoryak" — apparently dropping another name, that of Tenafly Police dispatcher, George Sikoryak. (Does she also know Angelina Jolie?)

Turner then rounds out her litany of insults with, "You're an ass....You're not a nice person."

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Moment Fifteen: 'You know what, Matt? This isn't going to go down nicely.'

As Turner and Officer Savitsky walk off camera to inspect the car as it's loaded onto a tow truck, Turner makes one final threat.

"You know what, Matt? This isn't going to go down nicely," warns Turner. "That's fine. We'll go to (Mayor) Rustin."

In an interview with NJ Advance Media on Tuesday, Tenafly Mayor Peter Rustin said that he'd not spoken to Turner since the traffic stop.

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Moment Sixteen: 'Guess what? I'm not so nice.'

Even as the car is towed away, Turner continues to demand information from Officer Savitsky about where it will be impounded.

The officer tells Turner that both the driver and her daughter were informed as to where it would be stored.

"Your daughter was very nice as well," said the officer. "She asked, and I told her."

"Guess what? said Turner, in what has to be the understatement of the encounter. "I'm not so nice. And you can tell that to everybody. And it's fine."

She then accuses Officer Savitsky of enjoying their inconvenience because of "a smug-ass look on your face...and it seems to please you."

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Postscript: Official misconduct charges for Turner?

Turner has been fired from her post as a Port Authority commissioner, but her troubles may not end there.

Mark Zinna, the former Tenafly Borough Council President who served as acting Mayor in 2017 is now calling for official misconduct charges to be brought against Turner.

"It really is official misconduct," said Zinna, in an interview with NJ Advance Media on Tuesday afternoon. "It is the definition of it."

Under New Jersey’s Official Misconduct statute, "a public servant is guilty of official misconduct when, with purpose to obtain a benefit for himself or another" he (or she) "commits an act relating to his (or her) office but constituting an unauthorized exercise of his official functions, knowing that such act is unauthorized or s/he is committing such act in an unauthorized manner."

As a crime of the second degree, official misconduct carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison without parole, and carries a maximum of ten years.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office said on Tuesday afternoon that it neither confirms nor denies investigations.

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More on the Caren Turner scandal

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at

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