Council OKs $85,000 payment to man shot in police raid

City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an $85,000 payment to a man shot in a 2013 Houston Police Department raid.

Council members did not discuss the item before authorizing it as part of the consent agenda.

The payment settles a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by George Ralph Benard, 43, who was shot once in the abdomen when he ran to another room of his parents’ house during a March 19, 2013, noknock narcotics raid.

HPD officers were acting on a tip that the wounded man’s brother had drugs in the house, according to a federal magistrate judge’s summary of the case. Benard has convictions for a few drug offenses and one misdemeanor assault on his criminal record in Harris County; his brother has several drug convictions.

Officers found drugs and weapons in the house, according to court records, but all parties agreed that Benard was unarmed when he was shot by HPD Officer Ferdinand Rodriguez Jr., who said Benard ran away and then seemed to be pulling something from his waistband.

A federal judge in March dismissed Benard’s claims against the city and the police department but allowed his lawsuit against the officer to continue, leading to the out-of-court settlement.

The mayor’s communications director, Alan Bernstein, declined to comment on the case. Other city officials did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Benard’s lawyer, Chareka Gadson, did not return phone messages.

The award is the second in a month stemming from HPD shootings, though such cash payments generally are rare. A few weeks ago, City Council approved a $260,000 payment to the family of Kenny Releford, an unarmed 38-year-old U.S. Navy veteran fatally shot in 2012 by another HPD officer.

That was the largest settlement in at least seven years in a case involving an unarmed person shot or killed by HPD officers.

In more than 150 cases from 2010-2015, HPD found all of those shootings to be “justified,” which Releford’s lawyer argued showed a custom of accepting the use of lethal force against even unarmed civilians.