The Atlanta City Council agreed Monday to spend $940,000 to settle four lawsuits filed against the Atlanta Police Department after officers allegedly used excessive or unnecessary force or conducted public strip searches.
The taxpayers’ total tab is about $2.6 million plus legal fees to resolve several police misconduct lawsuits in little more than a year.
There was no discussion before the council unanimously approved the four settlements; council members had just met privately with the city attorney, who briefed them.
But council member Felicia Moore said after the settlement vote that she was "concerned by the nature" of the allegations and would be "demanding" police officials appear before members to give a "full vetting of these [policy] changes so our citizens can be certain this doesn't happen again."
The APD has declined to discuss specific cases.
The settlements approved Monday provide for:
- Paying $330,000 to resolve another lawsuit based on the 2009 raid at the Atlanta Eagle bar, where patrons and employees were forced to lie on the floor for an hour while they were searched. The settlement says officers can be fired for destroying evidence needed in a civil case, a concern raised after some officers deleted from their cellphones pictures and text messages from the raid. Taxpayers had already spent $1.2 million on two other Eagle raid lawsuits.
- Paying $470,000 to settle a lawsuit by five men who said officers pulled down their pants and touched them inappropriately while looking for drugs that were not found. New APD policies are to say strip searches can be conducted only at the jail and that includes officers putting their hands inside a suspect's clothing.
- Paying Felicia Anderson $50,000 because officers took her cellphone and erased images of cops allegedly beating a handcuffed suspect. A new policy says officers can be fired if they destroy photos, videos or other recordings citizens make of police activity.
- Paying Shequita Walker $90,000. She was injured when an officer pulled her from a lawn chair and arrested her because she was sitting in a vacant lot, watching neighborhood goings-on.
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