A Detroit woman will be paid $40,000 in a settlement reached with the city of Dearborn, Michigan three years after she was given a ticket by a police officer for having HIV, the New York Daily News reports.
In August of 2012, Officer David Lacey pulled over a car in which Shalandra Jones was a passenger. The incident was recorded by the officer's dashboard camera. The officer asked Jones about the medications she had with her, and she told the officer that she has HIV. The officer then told Jones that her HIV status "might be something you want to tell a cop if they pull you out of a car."
After giving Jones tickets for driving without a license, a broken tail light, and medical marijuana, the officer told Jones, "Honestly, if it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I would have wrote anybody for anything. But that kind of really aggravated me, you know what I mean? You got to tell me right away. ... Because at that time, I wasn’t wearing any gloves."
Jones' lawyer Josh Moore told the New York Daily News that the officer's actions did much more than just violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, "It only added to the fear people with HIV have for disclosing their status," said Moore. "I have clients who won't even share their status with health care professionals."
"I was actually shocked," Jones told the Daily News,"I would have never expected that kind of behavior from a police officer."
"People need to know that stigmas can kill people with HIV. It makes you think differently, it makes you feel differently, when you get harsh behavior from people," Jones said.
Watch the dash cam footage from the 2012 incident below.
