$6.4 Million Freddie Gray Settlement Unanimously Approved By BOE
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The $6.4 million settlement between the city of Baltimore and the family of Freddie Gray was unanimously approved Wednesday morning by the city's Board of Estimates.
The settlement comes just one day before a key hearing which will decide where the trial will be held for six Baltimore officers charged in the Freddie Gray case.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren has more on Wednesday's settlement.
Billy Murphy, the lawyer for the Gray family said the mayor reached out to the Gray family in compassion to seek healing resolution and closure.
City leaders say they feared Gray's family would file a civil suit in federal court where there are no caps on damages.
Following the Board of Estimate's approval of the settlement, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said this settlement was made in the best interest of the taxpayers. The mayor stressed the city did not admit fault and the settlement has no bearing on the criminal trials for the six officers charged in Gray's death.
Rawlings-Blake continued by saying, "This settlement has nothing whatsoever to do with the criminal proceedings now underway. The purpose of the civil settlement is to bring an important measure of closure to the family, the community and the City and to avoid years and year of protracted civil litigation and potential hard to the community and divisiveness which may likely result."
Billy Murphy says the timing of the announcement--one day before a key hearing in the officer's cases--was carefully consider and was done to keep the peace.
However, not everyone agreed with the settlement.
The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police called Wednesday's settlement alarming and obscene. City attorneys point to multi-million dollar judgments here and elsewhere and say the risk was too great.
Retired federal judge Alexander Williams Jr. acted as a mediator saying that he believed the resolution was fair and reasonable and that "rolling the dice" and going to trial it could be unpredictable.
The mayor promised Gray's family she would push ahead a timetable to make officers wear body cameras. That could start in Gray's West Baltimore neighborhood before the end of the year.
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