Baltimore County To Pay $1.5M To Family Of Teen Killed By Off-Duty Officer

BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) -- Baltimore County will pay out $1.5 million to the family of a teenager who died during an altercation with an off-duty police officer. Christopher Brown was killed in June of 2012.

Meghan McCorkell has more on the settlement.

The settlement is one of the largest in Baltimore County for a police misconduct case.

Seventeen-year-old Christopher Brown was with a group of friends in June of 2012 when someone threw a rock at the front door of off-duty police officer James Laboard. Laboard chased the group, caught Brown and placed him in a chokehold. Brown died of asphyxiation.

"We're hurting and we want justice for Christopher so no other life---I'm talking nobody else---has to suffer like this," said Chris Brown, Christopher's mother.

But in 2013, Brown was acquitted of all charges in Brown's death. That's when Brown family attorney Russell Neverdon filed a civil lawsuit.

"A wrongful death. It would also include excessive use of force and it will deal with loss the family has incurred," Neverdon said at the time.

Now Baltimore County has reached a settlement, agreeing to pay the Brown family $1.5 million.

Legal analyst Andrew Levy says the county may not have wanted the civil case to go to court.

"It may also be that the damages that Baltimore County was going to have to pay if there was a civil judgment might have been many, many millions of dollars," Levy said.

Levy says even though the officer was found not guilty criminally, the burden of proof is much lower in a civil case.

"In a civil case, usually all the jury has to find is that the officer acted negligently or carelessly," Levy said.

Now the case is settled as the family continues to mourn. The Brown family has not commented on the settlement.

County police say they launched a thorough internal investigation following Brown's death.