The St. Paul City Council approved a $100,000 settlement Wednesday with a man who was shot with a Taser by police and then posted video of the encounter online.
Christopher V. Lollie, 29, sued the city and three police officers in federal court for $500,000 in damages, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated and that police falsified reports of the 2014 incident.
Lollie's suit said that he was targeted for sitting in the skyway because he is black. The officers involved — Lori Hayne, Michael Johnson and Bruce Schmidt — are white.
Council President Russ Stark said the city must continue the public dialogue about what happened that day, police training and how it can be prevented in the future.
"There are some folks in the [police] department who feel very strongly that the officers behaved appropriately, and I think, obviously, the settlement, in some ways, is a signal from the public, the court system … that maybe that's not exactly the case," said Stark, who attended the settlement talks earlier this month.
Lollie was sitting in a First National Bank skyway lounge in January 2014 waiting to pick up his children from day care when a security guard told him the space was for tenants. He refused to leave and allegedly resisted arrest. Police were called to the scene, and Lollie was followed and eventually subdued by police with a Taser.
Lollie posted a five-minute video of the incident on YouTube several months later after he received his cellphone from police, and it quickly grabbed local and national headlines.
The city's Police Civilian Review Commission cleared the officers of improper procedure and excessive use of force.
