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An Atlanta-based transwoman has won a lawsuit against two police officers who wrongly accused her of drug trafficking. Ju’Zema Goldring won a $1.5 million lawsuit against the city and officers Vladimir Henry and Juan Restrepo, who arrested and charged her with drug trafficking even though they never found drugs in her possession, The Washington Post reported.
In October 2015, Goldring, who had relocated from Maryland to Georgia, was stopped by police for jaywalking while out with her friends. They took her into custody on suspicion she could be drug trafficking. They insisted that she had a stress ball that was filled with cocaine. Goldring then told them they could cut the ball open and test its contents for drugs. Henry did so and the tests came back negative. Goldring alleged that as he continued to test the ball, she heard another police officer tell Henry “give it up buddy, it’s not a drug.”
Despite the negative test, it was documented that the contents tested positive and an arrest warrant was filed, WSBTV reported. Goldring was then held in jail for six months and was released in March 2016. Her release came after prosecutors also tested the contents of the stress ball and received negative results. Goldring said that once Henry and Restrepo found out that she was a transgender woman, they began harassing her, WSBTV noted. The police department claimed that the tests weren’t negative and were instead false negatives.
“It was clear these officers were lying,” Goldring’s lawyer Miguel Dominguez said. “The best they were able to come with at trial is maybe they needed more training.”
Judge William M. Ray II said that a contributing factor to this arrest could have been a point system within the police department that gives officers a certain number of points for taking different actions, like an arrest or writing a traffic ticket. Not getting an adequate number of points could lead to consequences for the officer and their supervisor.
“The Court is concerned that such a system may create perverse incentives for officers,” Ray said in a statement.
He added, “As it turns out, it wasn’t drugs at all, but she spent nearly 6 months in the Fulton County jail based on this seemingly bogus charge. The Court hopes the APD and the City of Atlanta might consider reforming these practices.”
