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Los Angeles Will Pay $8 Million To The Families Of Three LAPD Shooting Victims
The City of Los Angeles will pay out over $8 million to the families of three unarmed men who were shot and killed by LAPD officers. The City Council approved the amount in a unanimous vote on Tuesday, according to the L.A. Times.
The family of Brendon Glenn will receive $4 million. Glenn was a 29-year-old homeless man who was fatally shot by officers on May 5, 2015 in Venice. Officers were called to Windward and Pacific avenues at about 11:30 p.m. based on reports that a man was harassing people on Windward. Officers spotted Glenn in a scuffle with a bouncer at the nearby Townhouse Bar and intervened. Glenn was shot and killed in the ensuing conflict; one of the officers claimed that Glenn had reached for his partner's gun. However, video, which has not been released to the public, apparently showed that Glenn was lying facedown and appeared to be attempting to push himself back up when the officer took a step back and shot him twice. The L.A. Police Commission unanimously decided in April of 2016—11 months after Glenn's death—that the shooting was unjustified. The officer who shot Glenn may face criminal charges, pending a decision from the district attorney's office. KPCC found that an L.A. County officer has not been hit with criminal charges pertaining to an on-duty shooting since 2000.
The family of Reginald Doucet Jr. will receive $1.65 million. Doucet was 25 years old when he was shot and killed by police on January 14, 2011 in Playa Vista. Police said Doucet was discovered naked and "behaving erratically" at about 3:30 a.m. that morning. The model and former Middle Tennessee State University football player struggled with officers when they tried to arrest him. Though he was unarmed, officers opened fire and killed him. The Police Commission later found the shooting justified, though Doucet's family took issue with the idea that an unarmed man could have posed a serious threat to two trained officers.
Sergio Navas, 35, was fatally shot by police in March of 2015 after a car chase. The chase ended in Burbank, where Navas stopped on a dead end street and a pursuing LAPD SUV stopped alongside him. The father of three was killed when an officer in the passenger seat of the LAPD SUV opened fire—the officer later claimed that he was afraid of being ambushed when Navas got out of the car. The Police Commission later determined that the shooting violated policy. Navas' family sued for $10 million, but will receive $2.5 million.
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Navas' family's attorney, Luis Carillo, said these settlements will not be the last if the LAPD doesn't alter the way they deal with the public, according to ABC 7.
"The city of Los Angeles will continue to have these kinds of traffic incidents unless there's real, real meaningful change in the training and the culture within the LAPD," he said.
Councilman Paul Koretz spoke after the vote, saying, "It seemed for years that we had a better relationship with the community. We weren’t having fights over whether shootings were in policy or out of policy. It seems like we’re going in the wrong direction, and it appears that police departments across the country are having the same problem."
The City of Los Angeles previously agreed in June to a $1.8 million settlement to the family of Damion Russell, who suffered a cardiac arrest after being placed in a "hobble restraint device" by LAPD officers in 2014. Russell was left brain damaged after the encounter. The City also reached a tentative agreement with the family of Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old man who was shot and killed by officers in 2014, though the terms of that settlement have not been released.
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