Oakland will pay family $1.2 million in killing by police

The family of a man shot and killed by Oakland police last year after he was awakened inside his parked car, allegedly with a gun at his side, will get $1.2 million in a settlement approved by the Oakland City Council.

The council approved the payment Tuesday to settle legal action filed on behalf of the mother and three children of Demouria Hogg, 30.

“This gentleman’s life was needlessly taken,” said Adante Pointer, one of the family’s lawyers in the case. “The officers did not use best tactics. They violated their training. Why did they attempt to wake him and then, when he moved, shoot him? It was a very flawed strategy.”

Police found Hogg inside a BMW on the Interstate 580 off-ramp at Lakeshore Avenue around 7:30 a.m. on June 6, 2015. Through the car window they saw a pistol with an “extended magazine” on the passenger’s seat, police said.

Officers said they had tried to awaken Hogg with a loudspeaker and rounds fired from a beanbag gun. When that was unsuccessful, two officers broke the driver’s side window and attempted to subdue him with a Taser stun gun. But a third officer believed she saw him reach for the gun, and that officer fired two shots, killing Hogg, police said.

Police have not revealed the name of the officer who shot Hogg, but her attorney has said she was justified in using deadly force.

Pointer said the officers “could have reached a peaceful resolution” if they had not startled Hogg.

“No amount of money is going to bring back to this family the person they loved,” Pointer said. “We’re hoping this will make the Oakland Police Department change its tactics.”

Pointer said he did not know why Hogg had been sleeping in the car with the weapon beside him.

Jason Hicks, another lawyer representing Hogg’s mother, Allene Hutchinson, and three children, argued in his lawsuit that police “negligently assessed the circumstances presented to them and violently confronted (Hogg) without having probable cause.”

The settlement resolves the lawsuit that sought damages for unreasonable search and seizure, excessive force, interference with familial relationship, false arrest, battery and negligence causing wrongful death.