The video shows the interaction from the pull-over, to a slow-speed chase, to eventual arrest.
She’s saying her rights as a disabled woman were violated.
Jennifer Gayman said she was coming home from a karaoke bar last year when she was stopped by Brookings police.
Body cam footage shows the officers telling Gayman she’s being cited for driving her scooter on a sidewalk and without a helmet. “This is my disability scooter,” Gayman told the officers. “This is how I get around.”
She claims that she is protected to do that by the American with Disabilities Act.
“You’re taking my Disability Act and you’re throwing it in the garbage,” she said.
Police took her identification, then can be seeing Googling Oregon laws related to the use of a scooter. Then, they cited her.
“I gave you a violation you can’t drive this,” one officer said. Gayman replied, “Okay, you gave me a ticket goodbye.”
“You’re not welcome to drive this,” police said. “Ok, you’re going to go to jail if you continue driving.”
The Americans with Disabilities Act says that wheelchairs are allowed to be used in any area open to pedestrian use and that a scooter satisfies the definition of a wheelchair.
After the incident, Gayman said, “I’m going around asking people, ‘Have you been ticketed before?’ And they’re saying, ‘No.’ So I don’t know why it was me.”
Gayman said she suffers from a series of issues including macular degeneration of her eyes, COPD and peripheral neuropathy.
She says she was prescribed the scooter by her doctor.
KATU asked her if she had ever been stopped by police before. She replied, “Never have I been told any of that the whole two years I have lived in this town and rode that scooter and any other Town I have rode my mobility scooters before in the past.”
Gayman is facing five charges, including eluding an officer.
Her first court appearance is May 6.
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