2024-04-25 02:05:00
(AP) – A woman who sued Mississippi’s capital city over the death of her brother has decided to reject a settlement following officials publicly disclosed how much the city would pay its survivors, her attorney said Wednesday.
George Robinson, 62, died in January 2019, days following three Jackson police officers pulled him from a car while searching for a homicide suspect.
The Jackson City Council on Tuesday approved the payment of $17,786 to settle the lawsuit filed in October 2019 in state court by family members of Robinson. 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 were the three officers.
The payment to the family members — including Robinson’s sister, Bettersten Wade — was approved by a unanimous vote. Wade’s attorney, Dennis Sweet III, released a letter Wednesday saying 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 “seems to be claiming or inferring 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 say it just sends the wrong message regarding human life, especially Black people’s lives,” Stokes said. “I think a step in the right direction would have been to pay the family a little more.”
The lawsuit alleged that the three officers “brutally, cruelly and mercilessly beat Mr. Robinson by punching and kicking him.”
“Mr. Robinson had committed no crime, was not the subject of any active warrant, and was not a threat to himself or any person in the area,” the lawsuit states.
Robinson had been hospitalized for a stroke days before the police encounter and was on medication, Wade said. He had a seizure hours following being beaten, and he died two days later from bleeding on his brain.
Second-degree murder charges once morest two of the officers were dropped in the case. In August 2022, a Hinds County jury found former detective Anthony Fox guilty of criminally negligent homicide – and then in January of this year, the Mississippi Court of Appeals Fox’s conviction reversed. A majority of the appeals court wrote that prosecutors failed to prove that Fox “acted in a grossly negligent manner” or that Robinson’s death was “reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances.”
Wade is the mother of Dexter Wadethat was pulled over by an off-duty Jackson police officer in March 2023.
Dexter Wade is buried at the Hinds County Pauper’s Cemetery. But it was October before his mother was told regarding the funeral.
His body was exhumed Nov. 13, and an independent autopsy was performed. Found a wallet in the pocket of his jeans contained his state identification card with his home address, credit card and a health insurance card, said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Wade’s family.
On November 20, Dexter Wade’s family funeral held for him, and he was buried in another cemetery.
2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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