‘Hand to God.’ Deputy said driver was texting with a hand that she doesn’t have
A Palm Beach County deputy asked Monday for a woman’s texting-while-driving ticket to be dismissed after he accused the woman of using her cellphone with her nonexistent right hand, according to a social-media post.
In February, Kathleen Thomas was pulled over on 1800 North Dixie Highway for first-offense “device/handheld while driving,” the traffic citation shows. Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office Deputy Yosvani Quesada issued the 36-year-old Lake Worth Beach woman a $116 ticket.
Thomas, who goes by slightlyoff.balance on TikTok, posted body camera footage from the interaction to her social-media account. The video shows her laughing as she holds up her arm to reveal she doesn’t have a right hand.
The deputy told Thomas that she drove past him while holding and manipulating her cellphone with her right hand, according to the post. He seemingly backtracks and said “with the right hand perhaps not.” The deputy asks whether Thomas was using her phone while driving, and she responded that she didn’t, the video shows.
“Hand to God. You didn’t have a phone in your hand?” the deputy said, according to the video.
“Hand to God,” Thomas responds, as she holds up her right arm without a hand.
“The other hand to God,” the deputy said, according to the video. “You didn’t have a phone in your hand?”
Quesada asked for the case to be dismissed Monday, citing “insufficient evidence,” Palm Beach County court records show. His request was granted on Tuesday, and Thomas’ final citation hearing was cancelled.
Thomas, who was born with her lower right arm missing, told Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami she was being her normal self and threw her hand up to God.
“He did not recognize that as a sufficient hand to raise to God, which is ironic considering that’s who gave it to me,” Thomas told the TV station. “He proceeds to ask me to do my left, which is like, ‘OK, cool.’ Watching it after the fact, getting that bodycam footage over the weekend and sitting with it, I realized immediately that I felt very uncomfortable.”
In this particular case, the deputy initiated Thomas’ traffic stop based upon his visual observation, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Deputies are allowed under Florida law to issue tickets when “they observe what they reasonably believe to be a violation involving the use of a handheld wireless device while operating a motor vehicle.”
Authorities reviewed the state statutes involved and based upon the totality of the circumstances, “specifically the lack of clarity on how violations are labeled in our citation software,” a decision was made to dismiss the case based upon a “difference in wording” between the two statutes, which both pertain to the use of wireless communications devices while driving, the sheriff’s office said.
“Law enforcement officers are required to make decisions based on observations made in real time,” the sheriff’s office said. “As with any enforcement action, motorists have the right to contest citations through the judicial process, where all facts and evidence can be fully evaluated.”
Thomas told CBS News Miami she wondered what the deputy’s side of this encounter was.
“Explain to me what you were thinking. How did we get to this point?,” she said. “And then from there, kind of just see where our two sides can kind of come together and say, hey, look, here’s how we discuss limb difference. Here’s how you address somebody. Here’s things that you probably shouldn’t do, like make them raise their hand to God.”
