A federal jury awarded a black transgender woman $1.5 million after she spent six months in jail for being busted by Atlanta police on bogus cocaine charges, according to reports.
Ju’Zema Goldring spent six months in jail after she was arrested in October 2015 when two cops stopped her for jaywalking in downtown Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to her attorneys, the officers — Vladimir Henry and Juan Restrepo — found a “stress ball” in her purse, which they cut open and tested for cocaine. Despite a negative test result, Goldring was booked for trafficking cocaine.
She was released from prison half a year later after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted an independent test that also failed to detect cocaine, the attorney said. The charges were dismissed.
Goldring told WSB that she had been detained in a male jail where she was assaulted.
“The test was negative, and he charged her anyway,” attorney Jeff Filipovits said in a statement. “Everyone on the jury saw that the test was negative. It should not have taken seven years and a federal jury trial to bring this to light. It’s terrifying to think what other abuses the City of Atlanta has tolerated that haven’t gotten our attention. Our client was obviously profiled, as are so many others.”
Goldring’s attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city in 2019.
Officers Vladimir Henry and Juan Restrepo found a “stress ball” in Goldring’s purse, and assumed it was filled with cocaine. Courtesy of WSB-TVAccording to the mayor’s office, the suit was against the individual officer and the city has not been ordered to pay anything, WAGA reported.
Goldring’s attorneys argued that the officer violated the Atlanta Police Department’s Transgender Interaction policy, which was adopted in 2014.
The policy instructs officers to use an individual’s name and pronouns they identify with during interactions and to treat trans individuals “in a manner appropriate to the individual’s gender identity.”
Attorney Miguel Dominguez called Monday’s decision “a small but significant victory on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized people here in Atlanta, who have been suffering through discriminatory and callous policing by individuals who swear to protect and serve their communities, but who under the cover of darkness, are indifferent to the consequences of their discriminatory practices on the most vulnerable amongst us.”
