Cedar Rapids paid $619K to defend officer in shooting case
May 7, 2021 12:05PM CDT
FILE – In this June 6, 2020 file photo, Jerime Mitchell speaks to the crowd as his wife Bracken holds the microphone during a protest against police brutality at Greene Square in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. An insurance company for the City of Cedar Rapids will pay $8 million to Mitchell, who was paralyzed after police officer Lucas Jones shot him during a 2016 traffic stop. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette via AP, File)
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Cedar Rapids paid $619,000 to defend a white police officer against an excessive force lawsuit brought by a Black man he shot and paralyzed before reaching a landmark $8 million settlement.
The previously undisclosed legal costs add to the sizable payout in the 2016 shooting of Jerime Mitchell by then-Cedar Rapids police officer Lucas Jones during a traffic stop.
The city’s insurance company will fund the $8 million settlement, but city taxpayers are on the hook for $500,000 of the legal costs. That’s nearly twice as much as Cedar Rapids will save this year by closing a golf course and 20 times as much as it will spend on a new board to review complaints against officers.
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