Independence pays out millions to settle shooting that killed baby. Who pays?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Independence agreed to a nearly $6 million settlement for the 2024 shooting.
- Maria's parents, Tom and Lynne Pike, and Mitchell Holder will receive $2.945 million each.
- City records show a $1 million self‑insured retention covers law enforcement liability.
Independence has agreed to a nearly $6 million settlement stemming from the 2024 police shooting that killed Maria Pike and her 2-month-old daughter, Destinii — a payout attorneys say ranks among the largest publicly reported settlements involving police brutality in Missouri.
The settlement agreements show Pike’s parents, Tom and Lynne Pike and Destinii’s father, Mitchell Holder, will each receive $2.945 million, bringing the total settlement to $5.89 million.
The agreement resolves a wrongful death lawsuit filed less than a year after two Independence police officers shot and killed Pike while she was holding her infant daughter during a domestic disturbance call.
But while the settlement amount is now public, records and city officials now provide a clearer picture of how it will be funded.
The city will pay $900,410.90 of the $5.89 million settlement, while the remaining balance will be paid by States Self-Insurers Risk Retention Group, a company that provides excess liability coverage to public entities including cities, counties and school districts, according to Independence spokesperson Sherae Honeycutt.
Insurance policy presentations made to the Independence City Council in March show the city carries a $1 million self-insured retention on its liability coverage, including coverage for law enforcement liability.
A self-insured retention functions similarly to a deductible, requiring the city to cover the initial portion of a covered claim before excess insurance coverage is triggered. The city’s share of the settlement falls below that $1 million threshold.
“A representative of the Defendants or their insurance carrier shall purchase a structured settlement annuity from Metropolitan Tower Life Insurance Company to fund a structured settlement for the benefit of Mitchell Holder,” according to a court filing.
Tom Porto, attorney for the surviving family members, said it is among the largest settlement agreements for a police brutality case in Missouri history, not accounting for jury verdicts.
In a prior case stemming from a 2014 arrest, a federal jury awarded a man $6.5 million from a near-fatal interaction with an Independence Police Department officer, when he was tased for 20 seconds as a 17-year-old and went into cardiac arrest. Reporting from the verdict did not disclose whether that payment would fall on City of Independence officials.
The November 2024 shooting
On Nov. 7, 2024, Independence police were called to Oval Spring Apartments in Independence, where Holder lived with Pike and Destinii.
Officers responded to a domestic dispute where Holder’s mother reported that Pike had hit her.
Holder spoke to police and told them he had refused to let his mother inside the apartment, but she came in “unlawfully” through a sliding glass door, the lawsuit said. Holder said he and Maria Pike asked his mother to leave and then physically forced her out of their apartment.
When Officers Jordan White and Chad Cox entered the third-floor apartment, body camera footage showed Pike standing in a closet, which was also Destinii’s nursery, holding the infant. Pike eventually moved to the bed.
The two officers tried to talk with Pike, who never let go of her daughter, before she reached with her right hand toward the nightstand for a concealed butcher knife.
Pike raised the knife over her head and moved toward the officers. White, who spent 12 minutes with Pike, fired the four fatal shots, killing the mother and her baby.
Lawsuit filed eight months later
Porto, a civil attorney, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the surviving family members in July.
The suit alleged that the officers knew Pike was mentally ill and escalated events that day without waiting for a mental health professional who was called to the scene.
A release sent out by Porto’s office following the settlement being reached in May, called the case “extraordinary” because of “how police leadership defended the shooting in the days that followed.”
“Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman described the officer who fired the shots as a ‘long-tenured veteran of law enforcement,”’ according to the release, “and said the officers’ response that day ‘was exactly as they were trained to perform, and they did so according to that training and expertise.’”
The Star’s Laura Bauer contributed to this article.
