Newly released bodycam footage shows a New Jersey Democratic mayor stumbling and crying during her arrest for allegedly driving her toddler home from daycare drunk on St. Patrick’s Day.
Lumberton Mayor Gina LaPlaca, 45, was arrested and charged with a DUI, child endangerment and neglect, driving with an expired license, and other related offenses, according to a police complaint in Lumberton Township – a small city 25 miles east of Philadelphia.
Police approached her outside of her home around 5.40 pm on March 17 after a resident reported her erratic driving, police footage shows.
As LaPlaca took her two-year-old son out of his car seat in her BMW Sedan, one officer asked: “Are you OK?”.
“Yes, I am,” replied LaPlaca, before losing her balance and staggering.
When asked about her damaged side-view mirror, LaPlaca said she had hit something but vaguely said, “I don’t know.”
LaPlaca stumbled again when asked to stand on one leg as part of DUI tests before crying as officers handcuffed her, the footage shows.
“I’m sorry,” LaPlaca said to the officers, who allegedly found a small liquor bottle and an alcohol-filled water bottle in her car.
The mayor later admitted to police that she had been drinking before she went to collect her son from daycare, according to court documents seen by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
In a statement posted on social media, her husband Jason Carty, who is a firefighter and political activist, claimed his wife had been grappling with addiction and is now getting the treatment she needs.
The incident came after a spat LaPlaca was involved in on March 5 in her other role as the Neptune Township business administrator – a job she has since resigned from, citing a “changing political environment,” reports the Asbury Park Press.
She had been escorted out of a Mount Holly Fire Commissioners meeting after a heated exchange with audience members – shouting, “You have no idea what I’ve been through” as she walked away.
In 2023, she was arrested for assaulting Carty, who was also arrested and later accepted responsibility. Charges against LaPlaca were later dropped.
LaPlaca had been sworn in to serve a second term as mayor in January 2025.
She was first elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2023. Among her major projects is ending a homeless encampment in the area around Lumberton.
LaPlaca was released shortly after her arrest and is scheduled to appear in court on April 28.
