Unfortunately, racism still finds its way into routine police work. A Black woman and U.S. Air Force veteran says she was pulled over at gunpoint by three Texas police officers after they misread her license plate. Now, she’s suing the San Antonio Police Department for racial profiling.
Atlanta Black Star reports that the woman, Joi Hebron, has served nearly 20 years in the Air Force. Her lawsuit says the officers handcuffed her, put her in the back of a patrol car, and searched her truck. Then they realized that they had the wrong vehicle.
The incident took place on July 15, 2024. Hebron was leaving home in her 2016 Ford F-150 around 4:30 a.m. She was wearing her Air Force physical training uniform and heading to Lackland Air Force Base. She works there as a military training instructor. At first, she saw one police car behind her. Then two more joined. When they turned on their lights, she pulled over right away.
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According to the lawsuit, the three officers — identified as Robert Garcia, and two others named Rodriguez and Dech, ordered her out at gunpoint. They refused to tell her why.
Once she was handcuffed, they told her the truck’s tags “came back dirty,” meaning it had been reported stolen. One officer placed her in the back of a patrol car while the others searched her truck without consent or a warrant. A few minutes later, Officer Rodriguez checked her information on his computer and realized they had made a mistake.
Officer Rodriguez quietly got out, spoke to another officer, and then opened the patrol car door. “We saw your uniform hanging in the back,” he told her before letting her go. Hebron said she was terrified. “I thought I was going to be shot because of the color of my skin,” she told the officers at the scene. “I am a believer,” she said. She then walked behind her truck and broke down crying. She never got a clear explanation for why she was stopped.
More than a year later, Hebron says she’s still struggling. “I’m not a terrorist,” she told KSAT-TV. “I’m on U.S. soil. I had on my Air Force PT gear, which had an Air Force emblem on the back of my shirt. Never were the guns lowered.”
KSAT-TV requested police bodycam footage, but the department refused. The reason stated was the pending lawsuit.
The indoctrination in our education system is so much worse than we realize.
Survey reveals 70% of High School students are taught America is a racist country.
What happens to a nation when its schools express to its students such disdain and selective memory of its own country? pic.twitter.com/V4bd0CPEws
— DSTN Club (@dstnclub) September 19, 2025
San Antonio police declined an interview. However, they released a statement where they denied any racial profiling. The lawsuit claims the department violated Hebron’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights and allowed “policies and procedures” that resulted in racial profiling.
Her attorney, Markes Kirkwood, said the stop never should have happened. “This woman could have been killed if she had done anything other than what they asked her to do,” he told KSAT-TV. “Ms. Hebron was stopped because she was a Black woman in a predominantly white neighborhood in a nice-looking truck,” he added. “And she was stopped for no reason.”
Hebron says the experience left her fearful of police and deeply anxious. She’s been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. “I thought, then and now, my life was in danger,” she said.
