An officer with the Bristol Police Department in Virginia has been awarded $150,000 in compensatory and punitive damages stemming from an incident in September 2025.

On Sept. 6, 2025, casino security at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol asked on-site Bristol Police Officer Lilly-Kay Tomlinson to speak with two patrons suspected of sneaking into the Plum Lounge, a VIP area reserved for qualifying Unity by Hard Rock rewards members.

Upon approaching the suspected trespassers, a woman, later identified as Stephanie Lynn Bates, became unruly, shouting that Tomlinson had the wrong person. Bates, a self-described “influencer” on TikTok, claimed she and her husband rightfully entered the Plum Lounge with their rewards cards.

Tomlinson said she tried to de-escalate the situation, but Bates’ hostility only amplified. The officer eventually told the couple they would be arrested unless they immediately vacated the property.

Bates claimed she and her husband were forcibly and wrongly removed from the Hard Rock property by Tomlinson and other security personnel.

Bates later posted a series of videos to her TikTok discussing the incident. In one video titled “Violent Cop Who Wrongly Assaulted Me,” Bates detailed how Tomlinson allegedly “assaulted” her by yanking her arm. Bates’ videos racked up over 1.2 million views and were liked 58K times.

In response to Bates’ TikTok videos, the Bristol Police Department published the officer’s body camera footage of the incident. Law enforcement officials said the decision to release the footage was to dispel Bates’ claims that officers acted inappropriately.

Two months after the incident, Tomlinson filed a defamation lawsuit against Bates on allegations that Bates made false and defamatory claims that were “widely viewed on her social media page on TikTok.”