The bodycam video from Dianna Russini’s traffic stop is out, and it tells a simpler story than the one that made the rounds earlier.
The seven-minute, 10-second clip posted by Adam Herbets of the Center Square shows the full stop, and there’s no FaceTime call to an NFL head coach anywhere in it. That matters because Russini said during a February appearance on the Stugotz and Company radio show that she had FaceTimed an NFL coach while trying to get out of a ticket for texting while driving. That claim also came up at the start of a New York Times piece about her last week.
In the video, Russini tells the officer, “I’m an NFL reporter, and I just broke that Sean McDermott got fired from the Bills. And that I what I was just sending to send [sic], a tweet.
I was gonna pull over, because I have to make calls. I know you don’t care, but I just wanted you to know my reason why.”
The officer responds, “Obviously you were on your phone for a while. . . . I understand you’ve got a job.”
Russini then says, “You know who I was on the phone with? Brian Daboll. He wants the job.”
She also asks the officer whether he follows the Giants or the Jets. When he says he’s not a fan of either, Russini asks his team, and he says, “I’m a Vikings fan, unfortunately,”
From there, she shows him her phone and a text exchange with Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell. But the video does not show her FaceTiming O’Connell. It only shows her displaying the phone to the officer.
She also says, in reference to the Vikings, that their “quarterback sucks.”
After returning to his vehicle, the officer comes back and tells her, “I’m gonna cut you a break on the cellphone. I understand your job requires you to be on the phone a lot. Just try to wait ‘til you get home, OK?”
That was the end of it. The bodycam footage backs up the stop, but not the FaceTime story.
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