JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A woman who sued Mississippi’s capital city over the death of her brother has decided to reject a settlement after officials publicly disclosed how much the city would pay his survivors, her attorney said Wednesday.
George Robinson, 62, died in January 2019, days after three Jackson police officers pulled him from a car while searching for a murder suspect.
The Jackson City Council on Tuesday approved the payment of $17,786 to settle the lawsuit that relatives of Robinson filed in state court in October 2019, WLBT-TV reported. City documents said the settlement was not an admission of liability by the city or the three officers named in the lawsuit. Robinson was Black, as are the three officers.
The payment to the relatives — including Robinson’s sister, Bettersten Wade — was approved on a unanimous vote. Wade’s attorney, Dennis Sweet III, released a letter Wednesday saying that the city of Jackson violated a confidentiality agreement that was part of the settlement.
Sweet said that because of the public disclosure and because the city “appears to claim or infer some sort of perceived victory,” Wade intends to continue suing the city.
Sweet said Robinson’s family reached a separate “substantial settlement” with an ambulance company.
Councilman Kenneth Stokes said he thought the city settlement was too small, although he voted for it.
“I’m saying it just sends the wrong message about human life, especially Black people’s lives,” Stokes said. “I think a step in the right direction would’ve been to pay the family a little bit more.”
The lawsuit alleged that the three officers “brutally, viciously and mercilessly beat Mr. Robinson by striking and kicking him.”
“Mr. Robinson had not committed any crime, was not the subject of any active warrant, and was not a threat to himself or any person in the area,” the lawsuit said.
Robinson had been hospitalized for a stroke days before the police encounter and was on medication, Wade has said. He had a seizure hours after he was beaten, and he died two days later from bleeding on his brain.
Second-degree murder charges
Read original article by clicking here.