Florida Police Give Out Flyers With Pro-Trump Site Link To Traffic Violators

Police officers in Florida had been giving out flyers that redirected drivers with traffic violations to a pro-Trump online store instead of an official website where they could handle any ongoing tickets.

A city flyer that was distributed until last week gave drivers instructions on how to resolve minor traffic tickets on the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Court's website.

However, a minor typo, which saw the crucial hyphen dropped from the miami-dadeclerk.com URL, led drivers to an online store called Find Sale that sold a variety of pro-Trump merchandise, including 2024 camouflage caps, flags featuring obscenities and a DVD of a short film about a White House without the former president.

Few details are known about the company or individual that owns the pro-Trump online store. However, domain records show the website is hosted by Epik, which also hosts other far-right websites including Gab and Parler, NPR reported last year.

The error was discovered by a driver who alerted the police department about the erroneous website. Police administrators promptly removed the papers from a room at the headquarters where officers went to pick up the flyers.

“We’re aware of this typographical error now,” Miami Beach Police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez said. “We put out a notice to officers to discontinue using them.”

The police department has also corrected the mistake and is currently reprinting the flyers, Rodriguez added.

As of Thursday, the pro-Trump retail URL no longer redirected drivers to the online store. The link now leads visitors to the website of the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission, which handles complaints about judges. It is unclear who redirected the link.

The flyers were part of the police department’s campaign to raise awareness about its new program that allows drivers to resolve non-moving citations, such as faulty brake lights, online. The tool allows drivers to upload proof that they have fixed the situation and have their case dismissed by a hearing officer without needing to go to court amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You don’t have to go to court,” Judge Steve Leifman, an administrator in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, told The Miami Herald. “You save a tremendous amount of money.”

As of Thursday, health officials at Miami-Dade county have registered a total of 1,161,882 COVID-19 infections and 10,153 deaths.