North Lauderdale Mayoral Candidate's Boozy Bust
Police: office-seeker refused to leave loud party
By BRIAN HAMACHER
Updated 8:45 AM EST, Tue, Oct 6, 2009
A candidate for mayor of North Lauderdale was busted after he got out of hand and refused to leave a loud, boozy party, according to a police report.
Bruce J. Tumin, 51, was charged with disorderly intoxication, trespassing and obstruction without violence after police said he caused quite a ruckus outside the party on the 1200 block of Hampton Blvd. last Thursday night.
According to the police report released yesterday, when officers, who received an anonymous call of a loud party, responded to the house, they found Tumin yelling and cursing at a woman who was sitting on a truck.
"Why are you sitting on the truck? Is that your f---ing truck? Who gave you permission to sit on that truck?" Tumin said, according to the report.
When officers approached Tumin, they could "smell a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from the defendant's breath and person," the report read.
The report also noted that Tumin had slurred speech and red, glassy eyes.
When Tumin was ordered to leave the party he gave the classic line, "Do you know who I am?" to officers, according to the report.
Officers told Tumin to leave again, but he refused, yelling "Everyone, look what they are doing to me," according to the report.
After he was asked three more times to leave, and still refused, he was placed under arrest. As he was riding in the back of the squad car, he told the arresting officer, "Do you know who I am? I'm running for mayor of this town and I'll have your badge!"
Tumin runs his own company, Tumin Engineering, out of Margate, and is a former North Lauderdale city commissioner. His Mayoral candidate Website says he has been living in North Lauderdale since 1983.
"My priorities as Mayor are public safety, maintaining public property and an efficient administrations that collect taxes/fees/assessments fairly and spend them wisely," his Website reads.
Yesterday, Tumin said he's not guilty and hadn't been drinking, and claimed his arrest was politically motivated.
"There are double standards in North Lauderdale and that's what I want to change," Tumin told the Sun-Sentinel. "I was not disturbing the peace - they [party-goers] were. The police were refusing to do anything about it."
He also claimed he wasn't asked to leave the party.
"That's a lie right and left," Tumin said. "These policemen can ruin our lives and get away with it."
First Published: Oct 6, 2009 6:59 AM EST
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