SAN DIEGO — San Diego city prosecutors have agreed to pay $30 million to the family of a 16-year-old boy who was fatally shot by police last January, in one of the largest settlements for a police killing in U.S. history.
A resolution authorizing a proposed settlement with Konoa Wilson's family was added to the City Council agenda for Tuesday morning.
“What happened to Konoa was a catastrophic police failure,” family lawyer Nick Rowley said in a statement to City News Service. “The 16-year-old boy was running for his life. He posed no threat and was not a suspect, but was shot in the back by a police officer who only saw him for one second before deciding to pull the trigger.”
If approved, the settlement would exceed the $27 million the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay to the family of George Floyd, whose May 2020 killing by a police officer who knelt on his neck sparked a nationwide racial reckoning.
Surveillance and body camera footage from Jan. 28 shows Wilson running from someone who pulled out a gun and shot him at the downtown train station. As he left the station, Wilson met San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gold.
In the lawsuit against the city and Gold, the family alleged that the officer “instantly, without any warning,” fired two shots at Wilson, who was Black, as he ran by, striking him in the upper body.
“It was only after Defendant GOLD shot DEAD and saw him fall to the ground that he finally reported 'San Diego Police,'” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in June. “The defendants committed acts of racial violence against the DECEASED, a teenage boy, by shooting him in the back as he ran past defendant GOLD while trying to get to safety.”
Wilson was pronounced dead at UC San Diego Medical Center less than an hour later.
The agenda item released Friday said the payment would be made from the Civil Liability Fund.
