Updated on May 11, 2021 at 3:52 pm
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A Black federal worker who prosecutors say was pulled over without proper legal basis” and arrested this spring in Virginia told News4 her arrest was just the beginning of an experience in which she feared for her life.
Juanisha Brooks, a U.S. Department of Defense employee, was taken to jail and then released overnight without her cellphone, wallet or purse, she told News4, speaking on camera for the first time. The items were all in her car, which was impounded 30 minutes from the jail. Download our NBC Washington app for iOS or Android to get alerts for local breaking news and weather.
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After Black driver is handcuffed and arrested, Va. prosecutor says she never should have been pulled over
Tom Jackman, The Washington Post
May 10, 2021
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Early on March 6, Juanisha C. Brooks was driving home on the Capital Beltway when she saw the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle behind her. At first she thought it was an ambulance and she steered to the shoulder of an exit ramp to let it pass.
Brooks soon realized she was being pulled over, drove from the ramp to the first side street and stopped.
There, Brooks repeatedly asked Virginia State Police Trooper Robert G. Hindenlang why he had pulled her over, and Hindenlang repeatedly refused to say, dashboard-camera video from the trooper s car shows. He did not tell her he had noticed her taillights were out as she drove. Instead, he told Brooks that if she would step outside, he would show her why she had been stopped. Brooks told the trooper she didn t want to get out.
Charges dropped for Black govt employee forcibly removed from car by police
“Would he have done that to a White woman? No,” Juanisha C. Brooks said of the Virginia State trooper. “He didn’t see me as a human being.
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Criminal charges have been dropped against a Black government employee who was dragged out of her car during a traffic stop in March. It’s now been determined that a Virginia State Police trooper had no legal merit to detain
Juanisha C. Brooks.
Virginia State Police Trooper
Robert G. Hindenlang pulled Brooks over on March 6 on her drive home on the Capital beltway shortly after 2 a.m.,