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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Charlotte Pays $2.25M to End Police Shooting Case

(CN) - The city of Charlotte, North Carolina will pay $2.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of an unarmed black man shot and killed by a white police officer two years ago.

With Thursday's settlement, the family of the slain man says it will now turn its attention to the voluntary manslaughter trial of Officer Randall Kerrick. That trial is currently scheduled to begin on July 20, 2015.

Jonathan Ferrell was shot to death in the early morning hours of September 14, 2013, after wrecking his car in a subdivision northwest of Charlotte.

According to his family, Ferrell had spent the evening with friends at the local Hickory Tavern restaurant, and had offered to one of those friends home.

Ferrell had never before visited the Bradfield Farm subdivision, and in the dark inadvertently drove his 1999 Toyota onto the shoulder of its Reedy Creek Road and into a group of trees.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police later said that Ferrell pounded on the front door of a woman who lived near the scene of the accident, and she called police, fearing she was about to be the victim of a home invasion.

Ferrell's family says he merely sought aid at the first house he saw, having been unable to find his cellphone.

Three officers responded to the scene, Officer Kerrick, who is white, and two black patrolman.

According to the police department and court documents, Ferrell began walking toward Kerrick, who proceeded to shoot him 10 times. Neither of the other officers unholstered their guns, published reports said.

"Despite being completely incapacitated and mortally wounded, Mr. Ferrell was then handcuffed with his hands behind his back as he lay dying on the ground," the dead man's family said in a complaint filed in Mecklenburg County Superior Court on January 13, 2014.

In agreeing to the settlement, the city of Charlotte admitted no fault or liability related to Ferrell's death.

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