The incident occurred in April, when two officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) boarded AJ’s boat and his girlfriend’s near Key West, in a video that has accumulated over one million views on YouTube.
Body camera footage shows the officers questioning the couple about the phone and identification. AJ became increasingly agitated during the interrogation, arguing with the officers and his girlfriend. In a moment of desperation, AJ asked what would happen if he “swam away,” and immediately jumped into the ocean, leading the officers on a seven-minute chase back to shore.
The incident began when the officers informed the couple that they were searching for another boat in their jurisdiction. However, they encountered AJ and his girlfriend on a boat with several code violations. The officers quickly discovered that neither of them had identification and that the boat operated by AJ was in violation of several codes.
AJ, proclaiming his innocence, became enraged with the officers and asked them if they were “just trying to catch people breaking laws on the water.” One of the officers responded that they were addressing violations because “we’re police officers and that’s what we do.” As AJ became more agitated, the officers asked him if he had an arrest warrant, which AJ vehemently denied.
Increasingly anxious, AJ asked the officers what would happen if he “jumped in the water and swam away.” One of the officers responded that they would follow him and that he was not free to leave. When tensions reached their peak, AJ declared that he would “swim home” and jumped into the water.
His girlfriend, visibly frustrated, repeatedly asked him to unlock his phone so she could get her boss’s phone number, but AJ refused and jumped into the water. The officers attempted to bring him back to the boat to arrest him, but AJ insisted he was not “resisting.” After a minute of discussion, AJ began swimming away, followed by the officers.
“We’re done after this, I’m telling you,” his girlfriend shouted at him. “I’m leaving!” AJ then calmly swam for seven minutes back to shore with the two FWC officers following him. Before reaching land, the officers jumped from their boats and handcuffed him. They then escorted him to shore, where another officer was waiting before the video ended.
It is not known with certainty what charges AJ faced following the unusual incident. Comments on the video highlighted that AJ appeared more concerned about the possibility of his girlfriend accessing his phone than about being arrested. “The guy wasn’t worried about jail, he was worried about them unlocking his phone,” one user wrote.
“The guy would rather face a felony than let his girlfriend access his phone,” another commented. “The way he threw himself into the sea when she demanded his phone password,” a third commented.
