The Miami-Dade police officer who gave LeBron James a wrong-way escort to the Jay Z and Justin Timberlake concert last week received a verbal warning, the department said Thursday night.
The unnamed officer, who was part of an off-duty team working at Sun Life Stadium, came under scrutiny after Friday's concert for violating departmental policy.
The decision comes three days after the investigation was launched. The punishment is "informal counseling" for the officer, which is the equivalent of a verbal warning, according Roy Rutland, a department spokesman.
No further disciplinary action will be taken, police said.
The night of the concert, James didn't help the officer by posting a clip of the escort to his 3.5 million Instagram followers with the caption: "They treat us so well! Needed it cause traffic was nuts!!"
"Light police escort on the wrong side of the street," he said of the ride he shared with his fiancee, Savannah Brinson. "Headed to the big homie concert, JT. Holla!"
It all began Friday as the 8 p.m. concert was about to start. A call came over the police radio asking an officer to meet James' vehicle on Northwest 27th Avenue to escort him to the stadium.
In a news release Monday, the department said:
"It has been brought to our attention that a video was posted on the Internet by Lebrun James, a professional basketball player, where it shows him being escorted onto the property of Sun Life Stadium for a concert . . . His was not a scheduled escort and although all safety precautions were taken, the department has identified these actions as violating department policies."
James has not publicly spoken about the escort but posted a picture of a passage in a book on Instagram Tuesday, the day after the internal investigation was announced.
"Whenever you're happy an in a great place in anything, someone or something will try to put a virus in it to make it all unravel," the passage read. James added the hash tag #HatersBreedEnvy to the post.
Copyright 2013 - The Miami Herald
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
