Family of girls handcuffed at gunpoint reach $1.9M settlement with Colo. city
The family of four Black girls who were mistakenly handcuffed at gunpoint in August 2020 by police in Aurora, Colorado, reached a $1.9 million settlement with the city on Monday.
The family filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the department and the city claiming the officers’ actions permanently traumatized the girls and showed a pattern of systemic racism.
The incident occurred after police mistook Brittney Gilliam’s car as stolen.
Gilliam said she had taken her nieces, sister and daughter out for a girls’ day at a nail salon. After realizing the salon was closed, the group went back to their car, where they were surrounded by police with weapons drawn.
“All parties are very satisfied with this settlement,” David Lane, a lawyer for the family, told The Associated Press.
Lane said the settlement saved the girls the trauma of having to relive what happened during a trial. The money will be divided evenly between Gilliam and the four girls. The young girls’ portions will be placed into annuities so the money will grow by the time they access it when they turn, Lane said.
“Hopefully, this settlement will lead to changes in how police departments handle situations like this in the future,” Lane told USA TODAY.
Video taken by a bystander shows the four girls, ages 6 to 17, lying facedown on the ground next to their car. The 17-year-old and 12-year-old have their hands cuffed behind their backs.
According to the lawsuit, one of the officers tried to handcuff the 6-yearold, who was wearing a pink tiara and holding onto her cousin’s hand, but the handcuffs were too big.
“I want my mother,” one of the girls says in the video.
The girls struggle to eat and sleep,
“Hopefully, this settlement will lead to changes in how police departments handle situations like this in the future.”
are in therapy and fear the police, according to the lawsuit. The 14-year-old girl cannot get the “terrified screams” of her cousins out of her mind, it stated.
Gilliam said for the first year following the police encounter she was full of rage, angry she could not do anything to help the girls.
“Mentally, it destroyed me because I felt like not only am I not safe, these kids aren’t safe,” she said in an interview before the settlement was announced.
Police said Gilliam’s car matched the description and license plate number of a vehicle they had been notified was possibly stolen. They determined they had stopped the wrong car “shortly” after the people inside were ordered on the ground and some handcuffed.
The vehicle reported stolen was a motorcycle that had a Montana license plate with the same number.
Police Chief Vanessa Wilson said that when officers spot a stolen car, they are trained to do a “high-risk stop,” which involves drawing weapons and ordering occupants to exit the car and lie on the ground.
While an investigation found that the officers did not commit any crimes and were following their training, prosecutors said the incident was “unacceptable and preventable.”
In 2021, city spokesperson Ryan Luby said the department changed its training to give officers more discretion in responding to suspected stolen car cases, following the incident.
Contributing: The Associated Press