Diamond Reynolds, who livestreamed the minutes after a cop fatally shot her boyfriend, Philando Castile, has reached a $800,000 settlement with St. Anthony, Minnesota.
The four-member City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to pay Reynolds $675,000, with the remaining $125,000 to be paid from Roseville Police and the insurance trust, local station WCCO reported.
“The settlement symbolizes that what happened to my daughter and I on July 6, 2016, was wrong,” Reynolds said in a statement. “While no amount of money can change what happened, bring Philando back, or erase the pain that my daughter and I continue to suffer, I do hope that closing this chapter will allow us to get our lives back and move forward.”
The settlement comes months after Jeronimo Yanez, the cop who killed 32-year-old Castile, was acquitted of all charges in the shooting. Reynolds, who filed a complaint seeking monetary damages, was in the car with Castile and her 4-year-old daughter when Yanez pulled them over in July 2016. Yanez said he stopped Castile, who was driving, for a broken taillight, but later said he thought Castile looked like a robbery suspect.
Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at an elementary school, informed Yanez that he had a gun in his car, which he had a permit to carry. Dashcam footage shows Yanez telling Castile not to pull out the gun. Castile appears to say he’s not reaching for it, and then Yanez fires several shots into the car.
Reynolds broadcast the aftermath of the shooting to millions on Facebook Live. Both she and her daughter were later held by police.
Yanez, who said he feared for his life and that of Reynold’s daughter, was found not guilty of manslaughter and two counts of endangering Reynolds and her child.
Part of the settlement, which still has to be approved by a court, will go to a trust fund for Reynolds’ daughter and “her future educational needs,” according to The Washington Post. In June, Castile’s family reached a nearly $3 million settlement with the city.
“If we don’t approve this and we go ahead with litigation, it would just reopen the whole case again and bring heartache to everyone involved,” Mayor Jerry Faust told WCCO. “It is best to settle, and this will resolve all civil litigation stemming from the incident on July 6, 2016, and it opens the door to continued healing within our community.”
