The Sacramento Police Department may be required to reform use-of-force and body camera policies as part of a half-million-dollar settlement against an officer who beat an unarmed black man.
Nandi Cain was jaywalking in Del Paso Heights on April 10, 2017, when officer Anthony Figueroa approached, threw Cain to the ground and began punching him. Cain suffered a broken nose and a concussion, and video of the incident sparked national outrage.
“We were adamant that we wanted the department to consider some procedural changes here, reform,” said John Burris, the attorney representing Cain.
The settlement for the federal civil rights lawsuit, which Burris revealed today, includes a $550,000 payout to Cain, in addition to a series of police reforms agreed upon by the city.
The announcement comes after weeks of protest in Sacramento against two police officers who shot Stephon Clark, also an unarmed black man, in his grandmother’s backyard.
Protesters have been demanding the sorts of changes included in the settlement. But Burris said the city agreed to these changes prior to the Clark shooting, and that the settlement was in the works long before that.
“There wasn’t resistance on it. We just had to work through what it was that we wanted,” Burris said.
Burris said cultural training is crucial for officers patrolling Del Paso Heights and other neighborhoods where relationships with law enforcement are strained.
Figueroa will be banned from patrolling in the Del Paso Heights area in 2018 or 2019. He will not seek reassignment in the neighborhood until he has undergone “implicit bias training,” which all sworn employees of the department will undergo.
Additionally, the department will institute an audit policy for body camera footage. This will include going through all tape related to the incident and comparing it to the police report for accuracy. Under the settlement, those audits must be made available to the public.
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