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BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore officials are expected to decide Wednesday whether to pay $40,000 to an unarmed man who was shot by a police officer who is currently in prison for the shooting.
The settlement is intended to release the city and police department from further liability if approved by the city's Board of Estimates, the Baltimore Sun reported .
Former Baltimore police officer Wesley Cagle was sentenced to 12 years in prison for shooting burglary suspect Michael Johansen in 2014.
Cagle and other officers were responding to a commercial burglary when they encountered Johansen running from the building and shot him, prosecutors said. Johansen was lying in the building's doorway when Cagle approached him and shot him once in the groin, prosecutors said.
Cagle was convicted of assault and a weapons charge, but acquitted of an attempted murder charge, in 2016.
Cagle and Johansen are both white. Race hasn't been raised as a factor in the case, but it comes amid a national debate about the deaths of black men at the hands of police.
"There was no need for him to take that final shot," jury foreman Jerome Harper told the Baltimore Sun after the trial.
Johansen testified that he lost a large portion of his intestines and part of his kidney because of the shooting. He has filed litigation in federal and circuit courts against current and former police officers, and former Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, according to the spending board's agenda .
"In order to resolve the litigation prudently and economically to avoid expense, time, and uncertainty of further protracted proceedings, the parties have agreed to settle all claims by a payment of $40,000," the agenda states.
The city's law department recommended the settlement in the best interest of the city, according to the agenda.
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Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com
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