DENVER (AP) – Denver city attorneys have reached a record $6 million settlement agreement with the family of Marvin Booker that will cover the full amount of a jury’s award as well as the family’s attorney’s fees.
The deal will end the city’s appeal in the excessive-force case against five Denver Sheriff Department deputies involved in the death of Booker, a homeless street preacher who died inside the Downtown Detention Center in July 2010.
For years, Booker’s name has been a rallying cry for those who believe the city’s law enforcement has been too quick to shoot, beat or otherwise use force against criminal suspects.
On Monday, City Attorney Scott Martinez will ask City Council to approve moving the money from a contingency fund into a legal liability fund. The amount will cover the full $4.65 million awarded to the Booker family by a federal jury and $1.35 million to cover the family’s attorney’s fees, Martinez told The Denver Post on Wednesday.
“The settlement brings finality to the legal portion of the Booker case and allows all of us to turn our focus to healing,” Martinez said.
Darold Killmer, a Denver attorney who represented the Booker family, said the agreement brings relief to the family. They are ready to move on, he said.
“Denver should have long ago recognized their accountability and responsibility,” Killmer said.
The Booker family sued the city and the five deputies after Booker died after being shocked with a Taser, put in a “sleeper hold,” hit with nunchuks and forced to the ground as deputies tried to control him.
After hearing three weeks of testimony in the case, the federal jury concluded that deputies had used excessive force and awarded the family the highest payout in an excessive-force case in the city’s history.
The jury also ordered the city to pay the family’s legal fees.
The city filed a motion earlier this month asking a judge to reduce the jury’s judgment by a third.
However, Martinez’s comments indicate the city is ready to put an end to the appeal, which could have stretched for years, and the legal costs that go with it.
This has been an expensive year for Denver when it comes to legal claims against its law-enforcement agencies.
This summer, the city agreed to settle for $3.25 million a case filed by former jail inmate Jamal Hunter, who was beaten and scalded by fellow inmates and choked by a deputy.
The city used an outside law firm to defend itself in the Hunter and Booker cases, but the legal bills for those attorneys still are being added up.
In September, a federal jury awarded $1.8 million to Daniel Martinez Jr., and three of his four sons after a wrongful prosecution case in which police officers executed a warrantless raid on their home previously occupied by drug dealers and prostitutes.
But it has been the Booker case that has drawn years of attention. His name has been chanted at protests and in prayer services.
“It’s been a real call from the Denver community to say enough is enough,” Killmer said.
