68-year-old Stephanie Bottom has filed a lawsuit alleging that police officers used excessive force during a traffic stop two years that left her with serve injures. In May 2019, Bottoms was driving along Interstate 85 from the state of Georgia to Raleigh for a funeral when she was pulled over for alleging speeding and failing to stop when the police were pulling her over. According to the lawsuit against Salisbury Police Department and the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, Bottom, who was then 66-years old at the time, didn’t know she was going about 10 mph over than the speed limit.

The lawsuit says she was listening to music in her car at that time and she did not immediately realize she was being pulled over. Bottoms then looked for a safe place to pull over until spike strips were deployed to stop her.

Police officers approached her with guns drawn and grabbed her by her arm and hair, pulling her out of her car and throwing her on the ground. Police officers forced her to lay face down on the ground and put her arm behind her back, causing her “shoulder to ‘pop,’ tearing her rotator cuff and causing severe injury,” the lawsuit said, according to CNN.

The elderly requests for medical assistance were ignored although she said she was in pain. She was, however, she was handcuffed and the officers searched her car and purse without consent, warrant, or probable cause, which violated Bottom’s Fourth Amendment rights, the lawsuit alleges.

One officers was heard bragging about grabbing a “handful of dreads,” saying “at that point she earned it” on body camera footage.

When she was asked to stand but couldn’t because of the pain in her shoulder, officers forcefully picked her up by her arms, inflicting more injury to her shoulder. Bottoms received medical attention only after about an hour. She would later undergo surgery but it didn’t fully repair her shoulder and it has caused permanent damage, the lawsuit stated.

Bottom was charged with speeding and resisting arrest. She pleaded guilty to failure to heed blue lights and the other charges against her were dismissed.

Meanwhile, the Salisbury Police Department did not comment on the pending litigation.

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