The APD officer who shot and killed a naked 17-year-old earlier this year, and who was fired by Chief Acevedo, has settled with the city.
Basically, what’s going to happen is that:
- The arbitration process stops. So the officer won’t get his job back.
- His firing gets reclassified as “a general discharge”. In theory, this means that he could get a job in law enforcement somewhere else. At least, according to the Statesman.
- The fired officer gets $35,000. That seems kind of low to me, even if his lawyers aren’t getting a percentage.
Why settle, though? Well, the city may have felt like $35,000 was a cheap price to pay not to go through the hassle. And what if…
So you get the mayor, you probably get Acevedo, maybe you get Chief Manley (no idea how involved he was in the decision making…
…and I hate to play the “I know more than you do” card, but I’ve heard some things through the grapevine that indicate the arbitration hearing could have gotten complicated and possibly embarrassing for some of the parties involved. The circumstances under which I heard this make me uncomfortable going into detail, but let’s just say: it seems like there was a chance (and not a “Chicago Cubs winning the World Series” chance; oh, wait, never mind) that the chief’s decision could have been overturned, and the fired officer placed back on the force.
It would have been interesting to see how that played out: does the APD need two people on pager duty? (Actually, by now, that guy would have 29 or 30 years in: he’s probably retired and collecting at least 76% of $98,000 a year, if not more and if I remember my APD pension math right.)