The 6-year-old Lovely watched as her mother, Brittney Gilliam, was led to a patrol car in handcuffs after she shouted in frustration at the police, who mistakenly believed the car she was driving was stolen.
Three years later, Gilliam has agreed to a $1.9 million settlement with city officials in the Denver suburb of Aurora to resolve a lawsuit that claimed the police officers’ actions were evidence of “profound and systematic” racism, a lawyer for the family, David Lane, announced Monday.
One of the officers who stopped the car, Darian Dasko, was suspended for 160 hours. He and the other officer, Madisen Moen, still work for the department.
This settlement also marks the latest Aurora has been forced to pay out over police misconduct. The city settled for $15 million in 2021 with the parents of Elijah McClain. He was a 23-year-old Black man who was killed in 2019 after he was stopped as he walked down the street, placed in a neck hold and injected with a sedative. One police officer also was convicted in his death and two others were acquitted. Two paramedics were also convicted.
A state civil rights investigation — launched amid outrage over McClain’s death and released after Gilliam’s lawsuit was filed — found there was a deeply engrained culture of racially biased policing in the department.
Fine the officers in cases of gross negligence.
If the arrest people and take them into custody under false pretenses then charge them with kidnapping and false imprisonment. If they cannot do their own due diligence on the job, they need to be punished for abusing their authority.