State will pay $750,000 settlement to transgender inmate beaten at Baltimore's Central Booking

BALTIMORE -- The state of Maryland will pay $750,000 to Amber Canter, a transgender inmate who sued after she said she was beaten and discriminated against by correctional officers at Baltimore's Central Booking. 

"Amber's main motivation for bringing this lawsuit was to help other transgender inmates just like her get over all the obstacles, the retaliation, the misgendering, the discrimination that they face on a daily basis," her lawyer Malcolm Ruff, of Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. 

The assault on Canter

Video of the incident showed a correctional officer appearing to place Canter in a chokehold inside Central Booking—the state-run jail in Baltimore— in June of 2019, while two other officers were in the same room. 

Canter was then taken into a common area while two officers held her.

She said she went unconscious and the video showed her being dropped on the concrete floor on her face. 

The officers then dragged her limp body. 

Canter claimed they waited to get her medical treatment, and her injuries were so severe, she was later placed in intensive care at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"They treated her like less than a person," Ruff said. "She was called derogatory names. She was misgendered. She was abused physically, and she was abused mentally."

Protected under ADA 

Ruff said the settlement is significant because it establishes those with gender dysphoria as a protected class under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

"Every single person, no matter what they've done to be in a correctional facility, deserves the right to be treated like a human being and that's exactly what did not happen to Amber Canter," Ruff said. "That's why this groundbreaking legal precedent has been set because the leadership of the jail did not do enough to ensure that Amber's rights were protected."

State didn't admit wrongdoing

The state did not admit wrongdoing as part of the terms of the settlement.

Here's what Ruff said Canter wants people to know about the ordeal:  "I know she would say that everything she has had to endure has been worth it for the changes that come from this historic agreement."

Maryland's spending board approved the settlement last week.