NEW ORLEANS – The city of New Orleans is paying $250,000 to the family of Wendell Allen to settle the lawsuit stemming from Allen's fatal shooting at the hands of a New Orleans police officer.
In an exclusive story Thursday, WWL-TV revealed that a settlement had been reached several weeks ago following a series of favorable rulings for the city in the civil rights lawsuit filed by Allen's mother. After the story aired, the city promptly disclosed the $250,000 settlement, a figure close to what the family originally rejected when the lawsuit was in its early stages.
Allen's family came back to the negotiating table after rulings by U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey shot down any prospect of a larger payout, despite the fact that former officer Joshua Colclough pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing and is now serving a four-year sentence.
Allen, 20, was unarmed when he was shot once by Colclough as he emerged at the top of a stairwell during a drug raid. Allen's mother Natasha filed the federal lawsuit claiming a variety of civil rights violations that led to the "shooting, seizing and killing of Wendell Allen."
The claims in the lawsuit were later supported by a scathing report of the fatal shooting by Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson, who issued a report in August finding no evidence that police announced themselves before kicking in the front door of a house filled with children.
But in a summary judgment in favor of the city, Zainey dismissed all the federal claims against the city, Mayor Landrieu and former NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas. The only remaining claims were against Colclough and the city on relatively narrow state claims.
The city agreed to pay $250,000 in structured settlement to be paid by 2017.
In revealing the settlement, the city issued this written statement: "Following a comprehensive internal investigation, NOPD Officer Joshua Colclough accepted responsibility for his error in judgement and was criminally prosecuted. NOPD has implemented significant reforms to improve training, supervision and resources for our officers, including the implementation of body worn cameras. We are committed to continuing to work with the DOJ, federal Consent Decree Monitor and the Independent Police Monitor to ensure that NOPD is doing everything possible to prevent these types of incidents from happening again."
The settlement comes amid a wave of national headlines about questionable police shootings and multi-million dollar legal settlements. Two of those large settlements came in high-profile cases in which criminal charges have yet to come to trial.
A video just released in the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in Chicago led to a police officer being charged with murder. And a trial just began this week in Baltimore in Freddie Gray's death due to spinal injury after an alleged "rough ride" in which the handcuffed 25-year-old was left handcuffed to bounce around violently inside of a van.
But the Allen case took the opposite path of those cases: a quick resolution in criminal court with Colclough's manslaughter plea, but legal roadblocks in civil court. In the summary judgment letting the city off the hook for all federal claims, Zainey stated that the plaintiffs were unable to prove one key claim.
"Plaintiffs have not established the training (of Colclough) was so deficient that it caused the incident on the stairwell," Zainey wrote.
The sweeping rulings left only Colclough as a federal defendant, and Zainey pointed out that Colclough could be subject to immunity, leaving the family to pay his attorneys fees if they took him to trial and lost.
The Allen's attorney, Lionel "Lon" Burns, declined to comment on the settlement.
As for Colclough's criminal punishment, that appears to be winding down much sooner than the four-year sentence he received, according to his attorney Claude Schlesinger.
Schlesinger said his client is eligible for considerable good time based on credits he has earned inside prison.
"He's a model prisoner. He's taking classes to enhance his position to obtain an earlier release than he might otherwise obtain," Schlesinger said. "We're hopeful that it can be sometime in early 2016."
Not only that, Schlesinger said, Coclough recently got engaged to his girlfriend and has plans to get married shortly after his release.
