In the bag, the officers found a stress ball, which they cut open, checked for drugs and said they found cocaine inside, the lawsuit says.
Ms. Goldring believed “they were joking,” the lawsuit says, but that was not the case.
Officers Henry and Restrepo took Ms. Goldring to the Fulton County Jail. There, she saw officers doing drug tests on the substance inside the stress ball and heard one officer say to Officer Henry, “Drop it, buddy,” after multiple tests came back negative, the lawsuit says.
The officers then told Ms. Goldring that she would have to wait in jail until the test results came back from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, her lawyers said. Her alternative was to pay a $25,500 bail, which she could not afford.
While in prison, Ms Goldring was placed in a hostel for people who identify as transgender women, but she was still sexually harassed, according to her lawyers.
Ms Goldring remained there for five months and 12 days until March 22, 2016, the day after the charges were dropped against her. On November 17, 2015, the GBI determined that the contents of the stress ball were not cocaine or any other drug, the lawsuit says.
In his ruling, Judge Wray said there were “two apparent injustices” at the trial. The first came when Atlanta cops testified that they were arresting people for crossing the wrong road — a disturbing practice, according to Judge Ray, because such minor offenses can “seriously disrupt a person’s life,” leading to discrimination. He said the energy of the officers “could be better directed to more pressing matters, such as investigating violent crime.”
The judge’s second concern came when Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Darin Schierbaum testified that officers operate a system that rewards them with points for traffic violations, arrests or other actions.