LAKE WORTH, FL — The case against a woman ticketed by a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy for driving while holding a cell phone in her right hand, despite not having a right hand, has been dropped.
Kathleen Thomas, 36, was driving in Lake Worth when she was pulled over by the deputy on Feb. 12, Palm Beach County court records show.
She shared the deputy’s body-worn camera footage from the incident on TikTok on Tuesday, the night before her scheduled final court hearing.
Her TikTok video has since gone viral with more than 3.3 million likes. (Watch the full video below.)
In the video, the deputy can be seen approaching Thomas’ car and telling her that he pulled her over as part of a distracted driving operation.
He told her that he pulled her over because he saw her holding her phone in her right hand while driving.
Thomas raised her handless right arm and said, “So, obviously not.”
She added, “So, you want to just call this a day?”
The deputy didn’t back down, though, and said he saw her holding the phone.
He asked several times, “Hand to God, you did not have your phone in your hand?”
“Hand to God,” Thomas said, again raising her handless right arm.”
Court records show that she was ticketed that day for texting while driving, her first offense.
The case was “dismissed at the officer’s request” on Tuesday, just ahead of her final hearing on the matter, records show.
Thomas still showed up for her court date on Wednesday, just to be safe.
“I’m not one for taking a chance,” she said in a separate TikTok video about the case’s dismissal.
It was only after receiving a document that the ticket was dismissed at the courthouse that she could relax.
She also shared with her followers the reason for its dismissal.
“You guys, I cannot make up the reason behind why it was dismissed. It says lack of evidence. Bro, we knew that already, OK?” Thomas said.
Watch her video featuring the deputy’s body-worn camera footage from her traffic stop:
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