Here’s what police body camera videos showed in the Lumberton mayor arrest

Police have released body camera footage of the arrest of a Burlington County mayor after she allegedly drove while intoxicated with her son in the back seat.

Lumberton Township Mayor Gina LaPlaca was arrested around 5:50 p.m. on March 17 after witnesses reported seeing her driving erratically in the area, according to police.

Three police officers approached LaPlaca after she had parked her blue BMW sedan in her home driveway, the body camera videos show.

Officers informed her that they had received reports of her swerving and running a red light, and asked if she was OK. “Yes, I am,” LaPlaca said as she lifted her young son out of a carseat in the back and placed him down. But twice immediately afterward, she stumbled backward and bumped up against the car.

After noticing that the passenger side mirror of the car was badly damaged and the side of the car was scratched, the officers asked LaPlaca what happened or what she may have hit. LaPlaca told the officers that she did not know, and that she was coming from picking her son up from school. A neighbor came by at this point in the video to take care of LaPlaca’s son.

The officers administered a sobriety test on the mayor in front of the house, and the video shows she was not able to walk in a straight line. She says on the video she drank “a little bit of vodka” that day, and the police arrested her. She began to cry as they placed her in the back of their car.

Police searched the BMW and found what appeared to be an empty shot glass and a water bottle from LaPlaca’s purse that had dark liquid inside, which officers told each other smelled like alcohol.

Police took LaPlaca to the local police station, where they put her in a processing area and handcuffed her to a bench, the body cam video shows. LaPlaca later told a police officer on video that she drank at home earlier in the afternoon, not at bar or restaurant, and that she hadn’t eaten since 8 a.m.

Later in the evening at 7:05 p.m., a body camera video showed officers interviewing a witness who had called the police earlier in the evening to report an erratic driver. The man showed officers video he took while driving behind the blue BMW and said that he saw her nearly hit another car and utility pole, swerve into other lanes and drive onto the grass. The witness said he never saw the BMW running red lights or stop signs.

Just after 7:30 p.m., officers told LaPlaca that she was being charged for reckless driving related offenses on top of DWI and that she would be taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure before being released, given her blood alcohol content, which was not measured on video.

LaPlaca and her husband, Jason Carty, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. In a statement after her arrest, Carty said, “Gina is someone who has struggled, and is now getting the help she needs. I ask that everyone keep her in their thoughts as she moves forward on her road to recovery. ... This should not erase all the things she has accomplished for our community.”

At least one elected official in Lumberton has called on LaPlaca to resign.