Insurer to pay $8 million to Black man paralysed by Iowa officer

Iowa City - White police officer shot Jerime Mitchell during a 2016 traffic stop

An insurer for the City of Cedar Rapids will pay $8 million to a Black motorist who was paralysed after a White police officer shot him during a 2016 traffic stop, the city announced Monday.

The payout will settle a long-running lawsuit brought by Jerime Mitchell, 42, over a shooting that had sparked protests and exposed tensions between Black residents and authorities in Iowa’s second largest city.

The resolution cancels a trial that had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday, as the nation awaits a verdict in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd. It’s the most expensive settlement over allegations of police misconduct in Iowa history.

Cedar Rapids had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending against the lawsuit and arguing that Officer Lucas Jones was legally justified in shooting Mitchell. A city spokeswoman said in a statement that it was prepared for trial but its insurer, States Insurance, had control over whether to settle under its policy and “determined settlement to be in the best interests of its insured, the city.”

The city admitted no wrongdoing and said its review determined Jones acted properly given the circumstances of the stop.

“The case has been divisive to our community and it is our hope that we can continue to enhance relationships that build trust between our community and our police department,” said the statement, issued by spokeswoman Maria Johnson.

Larry Rogers Jr., an attorney for Mitchell and his wife, said the settlement was significant and will help pay for Mitchell’s future health care needs. But he said the case’s most important impact was to spur the firing of Jones, who had shot and killed another suspect in 2015.

“Deadly force was not justified here,” Rogers said. “With Lucas Jones’ termination, the citizens of Cedar Rapids are safer and an overly aggressive officer ... should never again wear a badge.”

Mitchell had attended rallies in his wheelchair last summer opposing police brutality and racial injustice. Activists then renewed their calls for the firing of Jones, who had returned to the force after a grand jury declined to charge him and an internal investigation cleared him of misconduct.

The Cedar Rapids Police Department promptly fired Jones last June, but not over the shootings. Instead, the department said that Jones was terminated for his handling of a stop the day before shooting Mitchell in which he let a young Black mother go instead of arresting her for driving while suspended, as required by policy.

The city opened a disciplinary investigation into that stop after Jones testified in a 2020 deposition for the Mitchell case that he turned off his body microphone “because I was violating a policy.” Mitchell’s lawyers contended Jones turned off his microphone purposely during Mitchell’s stop as well, leaving the dash camera video of the stop without sound and both sides disputing what was said.

A city panel has upheld Jones’ firing, but the former officer has filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement. In an interview last year, he accused the police chief of making him a “scapegoat” in response to political and legal pressure.

During a discovery dispute in the case, the Iowa Supreme Court ordered the city in 2019 to release investigative records to Mitchell’s lawyers without a protective order shielding them from public release.