Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) - City Council has rejected a settlement that would have given $340,000 to a Detroit Police officer, who killed three people in nine police shootings during his career, in exchange for his resignation.
The City Council voted 5-4 to reject the settlement Thursday.
“I believe it is both bad public policy and bad social policy for the city to pay a large sum of money to a police officer who has caused death and injuries to the citizens of this city,” Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel told the Detroit Free Press for a Friday story.
But Councilwoman Brenda Scott, who voted for the settlement, said the department would be better off without Brown.
“In the long run, taxpayers of the city would have made out better with the $340,000, getting rid of this cancer once and for all and moving on,” Scott told The Detroit News for a Friday story.
Donald Stolberg, an attorney for the Detroit Police Officers Association, said Brown is happy with the decision.
"(The city) would have been getting off very cheaply for all that they have done to him,” Stolberg said. “He is very pleased that they rejected (the settlement) because he had serious misgivings about it.”
Brown and the DPOA sued the city in U.S. District Court and Wayne County Circuit Court to force Brown’s promotion to sergeant. An arbitrator ruled in December that Brown, who had previously passed the sergeant’s examination, should be promoted, but the city has not done so.
DPOA lawyers were to appear in court Friday to argue that the promotion order should be immediately enforced.