You’ve probably seen the video. It’s hard to miss if you spend any time on the corner of the internet where "unhinged cop" compilations live. A man in a bathing suit, standing in a sunny Florida parking lot, suddenly finds himself staring down the barrel of a service weapon held by a Palm Beach Gardens police officer. That officer was Bethany Guerriero, and for a while there, she was the face of a massive national debate about police conduct, qualified immunity, and what happens when a 911 call goes sideways.
The story didn't end with the viral clip. Far from it.
While the internet moved on to the next scandal, a complex legal battle was just getting started in the Florida courts. If you're looking for the short version: she was fired, then she wasn't, and then a federal court had to decide if she’d actually broken the law.
The Incident That Started Everything
It was May 9, 2023. Ryan Gould was doing what many people in Palm Beach Gardens do on a Tuesday: swimming laps at his community pool. Things got weird when a dispute broke out between him and a female swimmer. It escalated fast. The woman’s husband reportedly showed Gould a firearm tucked into his waistband. Gould, rightfully spooked, called 911.
But here’s the kicker—the husband called 911, too.
He told dispatchers Gould was the one being aggressive and suggested he might be on drugs. By the time Officer Bethany Guerriero and her partner arrived at the Sable Ridge community, they weren't just responding to a "guy with a gun" call; they were walking into a "he-said, she-said" mess where everyone was potentially armed and agitated.
When Guerriero rolled up, Gould was waiting in the parking lot. He was in his swimsuit. He was the one who called for help. But Guerriero didn't see a victim; she saw a man who wasn't following orders.
"Hands out of your pockets for me," she told him.
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Gould replied, "I’m not the one with the gun." Then, he reached into his pocket. He was grabbing his phone, likely to record the interaction, but in the high-tension world of police work, reaching into a pocket after being told not to is a major red flag.
Guerriero pulled her gun. She ordered him to the ground. She handcuffed him. Gould was eventually released without charges, but the damage was done. The bodycam and bystander footage exploded online, racking up over 10 million views.
Fired, Reinstated, and the Power of Arbitration
By September 2023, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department had seen enough. They fired Bethany Guerriero. The department was blunt about it, too. They called her actions an "absolute abuse of authority." They basically said she was ethically and emotionally unfit for the job.
Most people thought that was the end of her career.
It wasn't.
Unions are powerful. In 2024, an arbitrator reviewed the case. This is a neutral third party who looks at the union contract and the department's policies. Despite the city's vocal opposition, the arbitrator ruled that the city hadn't followed the proper steps or that the punishment was too harsh compared to other incidents.
In August 2024, Bethany Guerriero won her job back.
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It was a massive blow to the city officials who had publicly condemned her. It also highlighted a huge point of friction in American policing: the gap between what the public thinks is "fireable" and what a labor contract actually allows.
The Federal Lawsuit: Gould v. Guerriero
While the internal department drama was unfolding, Ryan Gould wasn't sitting still. He sued. He accused Guerriero of excessive force and false arrest under 42 U.S.C. § 1983—a federal law that lets people sue government officials for civil rights violations.
This is where the legal concept of Qualified Immunity comes in.
To win, Gould had to prove two things:
- Guerriero violated his constitutional rights.
- That right was "clearly established" at the time.
In August 2024, a district court judge tossed the case. Gould appealed, taking it all the way to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. On May 5, 2025, the appeals court handed down its decision.
They affirmed the dismissal.
The court’s logic was nuanced. They didn't necessarily say Guerriero did a good job. In fact, they "assumed, without deciding" that drawing the gun might have been excessive force. However, they ruled that because Gould reached into his pocket after being told not to, a reasonable officer in that split second could have feared for their safety. Because there wasn't a previous case with nearly identical facts that said "you cannot pull a gun in this exact scenario," Guerriero was protected by qualified immunity.
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Where Things Stand Now
So, what happened to Bethany Guerriero in the long run?
Honestly, she’s back on the force, though her public profile has largely faded since the legal wins. As of the latest updates in mid-2025 and into 2026, the federal ruling effectively ended Gould’s path for damages in the civil court system, barring a long-shot appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case remains a textbook example of why these viral videos are so polarizing. To a civilian, seeing an unarmed man in a bathing suit held at gunpoint looks like a clear-cut case of an "unhinged cop." To the legal system, it’s a "split-second decision in a high-risk environment."
Key Takeaways for the Public
If you ever find yourself in a situation involving a police response—especially one involving a reported weapon—here is the reality of how the law views those interactions:
- Compliance is the only safety net: The courts repeatedly cited Gould reaching into his pocket as the justification for Guerriero’s escalation. Even if you are the one who called 911, the police treat everyone as a potential threat until the scene is cleared.
- Qualified Immunity is a high bar: Suing an individual officer is incredibly difficult. Unless the officer’s actions have been specifically ruled illegal in a nearly identical past case, the "clearly established" rule usually protects them.
- Internal discipline vs. Legal liability: An officer can be fired by their boss for being "unfit" while still being cleared by a court of "violating rights." These are two completely different legal standards.
The story of Bethany Guerriero is less about a single "bad" or "good" cop and more about the rigid, often frustrating way the American legal system balances individual rights against officer safety. For Ryan Gould, the ordeal resulted in a move back to Chicago and a lingering distrust of law enforcement. For the city of Palm Beach Gardens, it was an expensive lesson in the power of police unions and the complexities of modern policing in the age of viral video.
Keep an eye on local Florida police commission records if you want to track her current assignments, as those are public record, though often buried in administrative filings.
Next Steps for Research:
If you want to see the specific legal reasoning yourself, you can look up the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals case Ryan Gould v. Bethany Guerriero, No. 24-12818. It provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of the bodycam footage that the public rarely sees in the 30-second social media clips.