Fatal shooting, chase and assaults: Payouts by KC police top $6.8 million in one year
The Kansas City Police Department has recently paid out more than $6.8 million in settlements for incidents including a police chase, false imprisonment and excessive force.
Payouts from February 2023 to February 2024 totaled $6,810,001, according to records. Several of the settlements involved officers who have been named in multiple use of force cases.
Steve Young, co-founder of the Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project, said that amount of money was “an obscene number. They should really be embarrassed about that.”
Young said the department needs to ask itself what it can do better and improve on de-escalation.
“They scream from the mountaintops that they need help solving crimes in our community,” he said. “However in order for them to start solving crime, they need to start actually holding their police accountable.”
That would lead to more trust with the community, Young added.
The police department said each incident is reviewed by the agency’s general counsel and the Board of Police Commissioners.
“Decisions are made with regard to settlements ensuring the best outcome for all parties involved while taking into account the most fiscally responsible thing for our budget,” Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement to The Star. “This means balancing the cost of ongoing litigation versus reaching a settlement agreement.”
Gonzalez added that community relations have been at the forefront of Chief Stacey Graves’ priorities since she was appointed in December 2022. It is a key component of her violence crime reduction plan and she has also expanded the community engagement division.
In terms of de-escalation, Gonzalez said training was implemented over 10 years ago and “continues to adapt to the needs of the community and the department.”
Claims and settlements
A January 2021 traffic stop resulted in a $285,000 payout.
Xavier Peters was pulled over by officers Marco Olivas and J. Geiger. When Peters asked why he had been stopped, they got in his vehicle and began tugging on him and beating him, according to court documents. The officers struck him in the face and kneed him. Once he was out of the car, they put his face in the snow and “applied force” to his neck, the lawsuit said.
Peters was arrested and charged with resisting arrest. He was found not guilty.
Olivas was previously named in a racial profiling complaint filed by a fellow KCPD officer. That case was dismissed last month, court records show. Olivas was also involved in a police chase in March 2022. The fleeing driver hit a taxi, killing a 38-year-old mother of seven.
In another use of force case, Mack Nelson received $500,000 after he was thrown to the ground on Aug. 8, 2022. A bystander captured part of that encounter on video.
Mike Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, said charges against the officers were declined.
“We concluded we could not meet our burden of presenting proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said in an email.
Two of the ten encounters resulting in recent settlements ended in death.
In August 2018, Thomas Colatrella, 32, was picking up ice cream for his girlfriend and her four children when he was struck by a driver fleeing Kansas City police. His girlfriend, April Mercer, said at the time that officers endangered people by engaging in a pursuit where speeds hit 75 mph, the driver blew through stop signs and went down a one-way street in the wrong direction.
In an investigation earlier this year, The Star found that innocent bystanders are often the victims when police chases go wrong.
Colatrella’s family received $162,500.
The family of Terrence Bridges got $5 million. Bridges, 30, was shot and killed in May 2019 after officers responded to a reported carjacking. Police had said Bridges resisted arrest and an officer shot him during a struggle. However, his family maintained that Bridges did not pose a threat, was not armed when he was shot and was not involved in a carjacking.
The officer was identified as Dylan Pifer. In 2021, the department settled an excessive use of force allegation involving Pifer and Sgt. Matthew Neal for $725,000. In that incident, Neal pressed his knee into a teen’s head and pinned his face into the pavement.
Recent cases also included Roderick Reed, who received $500,000 for false imprisonment. In May 2019, he saw an officer strike a Black transgender woman and stopped to record the encounter. He was prosecuted for failing to move his car, but later pardoned by Mayor Quinton Lucas.
Reed’s video was cited by the Jackson County prosecutor when charges against former officers Charles W. Prichard and Matthew G. Brummett were announced.
The two were convicted in 2022 of felony third-degree assault charge for slamming Breona Hill’s head into the ground. The former officers were sentenced to three years on probation and had to surrender their police certifications.
The officers were also accused of using excessive force in two other alleged incidents.
Hill’s family received $200,000.
This story was originally published May 29, 2024 at 11:27 AM.
