Court Settlements

One year after the city of Chicago fired a police review investigator for finding several police shootings unjustified, the city continues to dish out millions of dollars in police brutality settlements, including $18.6 million so far this year.
The most recent settlements were approved last week; three cases totaling $4.72 million, including the last of 25 lawsuits stemming for a rogue cop named Jerome Finnigan.

A man who was on the phone with his mother when a Seattle police officer pepper sprayed him as he walked by will receive a $100,000 settlement.
Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher, had just given a speech during a Martin Luther King, Jr. event last year when Seattle police officer Sandra DeLaFuente pepper sprayed him, ordering him to get back, even though he was already walking away from her and was never that close to begin with.

The city of Tukwila in Washington agreed to settle a lawsuit for $100,000 plus attorney’s fee after officers punched a restrained man in the face and head, shocking him with taser darts and then siccing a police dog on him in what the department calls “pain compliance” – a use of force tactic they say falls “within policy.”

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Donna Watts was just doing her job on October 11, 2011 when she tried to pull over an off-duty Miami police officer in a patrol car, who was driving 120 mph down I-95.
But Fausto Lopez continued speeding down the highway, refusing to pull over for several miles.
Not knowing why Lopez would not pull over after being “lit up,” Watts had him exit the vehicle at gun point.
It just got crazier and weirder from there.

Despite a coroner’s report that determined a man died of heart disease at the exact moment he was being beaten by sheriff’s deputies in California, Kern County agreed to a $3.4 million settlement with the man’s family this week.
The autopsy, however, was always questionable considering the Kern County Coroner reports to the Kern County Sheriff, whose deputies attacked David Sal Silva in a horrific beating caught on video.
Deputies also confiscated cameras from witnesses after the beating.

The city of Cleveland will pay $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy shot and killed by police while playing in the park with a pellet gun.
The settlement comes with the stipulation that police did nothing wrong in shooting the boy within one second of pulling up to the park, even though he was not even holding the pellet gun at the time.

A Florida woman used her still camera to bring two cops to justice, and help her husband collect a $275,000 settlement after having his face bashed by lawmen.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and a Florida judge decided it’s worth a whole lot more than that.
After being arrested, Joe Florence looked like he’d been run over.
By a Mack truck.
The Florida man suffered a broken nose, broken jaw, a bruised face, and underwent three surgeries to re-set his shattered bones.

A Florida woman used her still camera to bring two cops to justice, and help her husband collect a $275,000 settlement after having his face bashed by lawmen.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and a Florida judge decided it’s worth a whole lot more than that.
After being arrested, Joe Florence looked like he’d been run over.
By a Mack truck.
The Florida man suffered a broken nose, broken jaw, a bruised face, and underwent three surgeries to re-set his shattered bones.

A Florida woman used her still camera to bring two cops to justice, and help her husband collect a $275,000 settlement after having his face bashed by lawmen.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and a Florida judge decided it’s worth a whole lot more than that.
After being arrested, Joe Florence looked like he’d been run over.
By a Mack truck.
The Florida man suffered a broken nose, broken jaw, a bruised face, and underwent three surgeries to re-set his shattered bones.

In a desperate bid to keep the killer cop off the stand, South Carolina cops settled for $2,150,000 with Zachary Hammond’s family in their wrongful death lawsuit.
Seneca Police Lt. Mark Tiller shot and killed Hammond, then lied about the circumstances, claiming the teen tried to run him over.
But Tiller shot through the passenger window.
It was a small time marijuana sale gone horribly wrong.
Zachary Hammond’s passenger was the target.