The metropolis of San Diego has agreed to pay $30 million to the household of a 16-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a San Diego police officer whereas the teenager was operating away from gunshots fired by one other particular person.
The household’s attorneys say is believed to be the most important settlement stemming from a police killing in U.S. historical past, it was introduced Friday.
Konoa Wilson’s mother and father sued the town and the officer who shot him, San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gold, in reference to the teenager’s capturing loss of life on the night time of Jan. 28.
According to the household’s lawsuit, the boy was fleeing gunshots fired at him by one other particular person when he encountered Gold, who shot the boy twice within the again “instantly, without any warning.” Konoa was pronounced lifeless at a hospital lower than an hour later.
Attorneys representing the teenager’s household say the not too long ago reached settlement determine eclipses the earlier largest police killing settlement of $27 million paid out by Minneapolis to the household of George Floyd.
The settlement quantity was disclosed in a San Diego City Council agenda posted on Friday and can be formally thought-about by the council Tuesday. Representatives for the town couldn’t be reached late Friday afternoon for remark.
“What happened to Konoa was a catastrophic failure of policing,” the Wilson household’s lawyer, Nick Rowley, mentioned in an announcement. “A 16-year-old boy was running for his life. He was not a threat and not a suspect, yet he was shot in the back by a police officer who only saw him for one second before deciding to pull the trigger.”
In Santa Fe Depot trolley station surveillance footage launched by the police division earlier this yr, Konoa will be seen operating after one other particular person pulls out a gun and opens fireplace on him on the station’s west platform.
Gold and one other officer have been within the space responding to an unrelated report of an assault when the gunshots rang out.
The boy will be seen operating down a hall main out of the station and rising on Kettner Boulevard simply as Gold was operating in direction of the identical hall.
Body-worn digicam footage exhibits the officer instantly fireplace on the teenager at shut vary. Rowley mentioned Gold shot the boy “before he even announced who he was.”
After he was shot, the video exhibits the boy screaming and operating briefly earlier than collapsing. Officers then started performing CPR on him and, whereas doing so, discovered a handgun hid underneath the youth’s clothes close to his proper thigh, in response to police.
There have been no indications within the video that the teenager fired his gun through the incident or was holding it when Gold, a two-year member of the police division, opened fireplace on him.
Rowley mentioned the boy had the gun for self-defense, as a result of he had not too long ago been focused and assaulted by gang members. The lawyer mentioned the gun was not believed to be loaded, however extra importantly, was not brandished when he was shot.
“This settlement brings some semblance of accountability, but not closure,” Rowley’s assertion continued. “You don’t get closure when your youngster is shot within the again for doing nothing mistaken by the people who find themselves imagined to be defending him.
“We hope that Konoa’s story will send a message across the country: Cities will pay dearly when officers violate the law and take a life without justification. We expect the city of San Diego to ensure this never happens again.”
The boy was killed three months shy of his seventeenth birthday. In an announcement, attorneys mentioned he was “an only child, and his parents lost their only son.”
Police mentioned the one who fired gunshots at Konoa — described solely as a 16-year-old juvenile — was arrested simply over per week later.