- February 23, 2026
Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry said that his social media post about the traffic stop involving his wife on Feb. 11was from the perspective of a husband, not as the city’s mayor.
Henry’s wife Stephanie Pasley-Henry was pulled over for a traffic stop on Feb. 11 at Lincoln Street and Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard in Daytona Beach. The officers said the reason for the stop was because Pasley-Henry made an improper left turn onto Bethune Boulevard and rolled over the white line before stopping.
Two Daytona Beach police officers initiated the stop and a Volusia County Sheriff’s Office deputy later joined the scene. In a Facebook post written just after midnight on Feb. 12, Henry said the stop was “frivolous,” and called for an end to “over policing in Daytona Beach and beyond.”
Henry’s Facebook spurred responses from DBPD Chief Jakari Young and Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood. Young said two DBPD officers were a training pair and the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office deputy stopped of his own volition to check on the scene.
The stop was not racially motivated, he said.
“This is not who we are as a department, and it is not how I lead,” Young said. “Officers do not police based on race or ethnicity.”
Speaking at the Feb. 18 Daytona Beach Commission meeting as both “a husband and as mayor,” Henry said, “There is no conflict between me and our police chief nor is there conflict between me and our Sheriff.”
“I value their leadership, but I do not have to agree with every perspective in every situation,” Henry said. “And differing viewpoints do not mean opposition to the work at hand. Complex issues can reasonably be viewed from more than one angle.”
The legality of the stop “was never in question,” he said, though he did have concerns about the efficiency of a stop that lasted “well over 30 minutes” without any escalating issue or any sign of impairment.
The officers were more than courteous during the stop, Henry said, and neither his social media post nor his wife’s experience assigned “bad intent to the officers involved.”
“They were performing their duties as they understood them and according to their training,” Henry said. “But lived experience still matters. Residents measure public safety, not only by outcomes, but by how they are treated along the way.”
Public service requires a willingness to have difficult conversations, he said. Listening to lived experiences is not an attack but part of improving trust in policing.
“We must be mature enough as a community to hold two truths at once,” he said.
Henry said he has always and will continue to support Daytona Beach’s law enforcement, and will continue to advocate for investing in their benefits, programs and equipment. His statement on Facebook was from the perspective of a husband and father, not an attack on law enforcement.
We all want the same goal for a safer, more unified Daytona Beach, he said.
“My commitment to our police department remains unwavering. My commitment to listening to our residents remains unwavering. Those two commitments are not in conflict,” Henry said. “They are complimentary.”
