04-May-05 01:47

City of Boston pays $5 million to pepperball victim's family

author: Donovan Slack [Boston Globe]

The City of Boston announced yesterday that it will pay the biggest wrongful death settlement in its history, $5 million, to the family of Victoria Snelgrove, the college student killed in October by police trying to control a crowd outside Fenway Park.

Under the settlement, the city could recoup up to $2 million if Snelgrove's family successfully sues the manufacturer of the pepper-pellet gun used by police when she was killed.

Using words such as ''heart wrenching" and ''terrible" to describe the shooting, Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole announced the agreement, which calls for the city to contribute an additional $100,000 to a scholarship fund and to help the family dedicate a public memorial.

O'Toole also disclosed that Deputy Superintendent Robert E. O'Toole Jr., the commander who authorized the use of the FN303 pepper-pellet gun and who fired one himself that night without certification, is retiring from the department.

Retiring Deputy Supt. O'Toole says he ''did more good than harm." A22.

Snelgrove, a 21-year-old junior from East Bridgewater, was struck in the eye by a pellet police fired into crowds celebrating the Red Sox's American League championship.

A lawyer for the Snelgrove family, who released a compilation of family remembrances of the Emerson College journalism student yesterday, said other parts of the settlement are as important to the Snelgroves as the $5 million.

''The Snelgroves assign tremendous importance to the scholarship fund, through which they intend to honor their daughter," Patrick Jones said.

Jones also said his office is examining whether the Snelgrove family should sue the pepper-pellet gun's manufacturer, FN Herstal, an action that may cover how the gun was marketed and tested, as well as warnings issued about the weapon.

The city does not plan to file a separate lawsuit or sign on to a possible Snelgrove family suit, but as part of the settlement, it agreed to ''cooperate in all respects" with a Snelgrove claim. The city would get half of any award.

''I think it's better if we team up with the Snelgrove family to work together, and maybe we'll get some relief from the manufacturer of the gun," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in an interview last night. ''The end result is, if it's unsafe, to get it off the streets."

A representative for FN Herstal, reached yesterday before the settlement was announced, said the company had been given no indication that its weapons malfunctioned. ''I have to this day had zero contact with the Boston Police Department," said Rick DeMilt director of sales and marketing for FN Herstal USA.

DeMilt later said any reaction to the settlement would come from FN Herstal lawyers, who are based in Belgium and could not be reached for comment last night.

At the press conference yesterday, the police commissioner said that for her and for the Snelgrove family, one of the most important parts of the settlement is the public declaration that a police investigation concluded that Victoria Snelgrove was not rioting or misbehaving in any way.

''Torie was, in all respects, an innocent bystander, and her death is a terrible tragedy that we sincerely and deeply regret," Kathleen O'Toole said.

Under the five-page settlement, the Snelgroves agree not to pursue further claims against the city or any of the officers involved. The agreement was signed by Snelgrove's parents and by Mary Jo Harris, Police Department counsel, on behalf of Menino, Commissioner O'Toole, and Rochefort Milien, the patrolman who police say fired the fatal shot.

Crowds in Kenmore Square on Oct. 21 had turned violent after the Red Sox victory, throwing projectiles, lighting fires, and attacking two cars, when the commander in the area, Robert O'Toole, authorized the use of the FN303 pepper-pellet guns to control the crowds, police have said.

O'Toole, Milien, and Patrolman Samil Silta fired the weapons ''at targeted individuals" in the crowd on Lansdowne Street, striking at least four people, a police statement in November said. The statement said Snelgrove was struck when a pellet ''missed its intended target," who was not identified.

Two other men were struck in the face by pepper pellets. Settlement talks between their lawyers and the city are scheduled for Thursday, sources familiar with those negotiations have said.

Robert O'Toole, who is not related to the police commissioner, met with Kathleen O'Toole last week and filed a letter of intent to retire yesterday. He said he was not pressured to leave.

''Bob has been at the center of controversy and media speculation since this tragedy occurred," the commissioner said. ''While Bob is the first to admit that he's made mistakes during his career, he has served the city for 37 years, and his contributions to the Boston Police Department cannot be overstated."

The mayor said last night that the retirement ''takes some of the edge off what everybody's discussing."

Boston lawyer Thomas Drechsler, who represents Milien and Silta, said Snelgrove's death was ''a terrible accident" and that his clients were pleased with the settlement. He said Milien did not see Snelgrove and ''was firing the weapon at someone who was clearly presenting a danger to the officers and other people present by throwing bottles and projectiles."

The results of two investigations into Snelgrove's death are expected to be finalized and released in coming weeks.

The results of one, by homicide and other detectives in the Police Department, is in the hands of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose spokesman said a decision about filing criminal charges will be made in the ''not-too-distant future."

The second investigation, by an independent seven-member panel headed by former US attorney Donald K. Stern, is expected to make recommendations that will help police departments across the country on the training and use of pepper-pellet guns and other crowd-control weapons.

A third probe, by Boston Police Internal Affairs investigators is not finished yet, police have said, and it is unclear when it will be.

The $5 million settlement, $3 million in cash and a $2 million annuity, will come from city funds designated for lawsuit settlements, not from insurance. It is in line with payments in other wrongful-death cases involving police around the country, legal specialists said yesterday.

''It's a large sum in the City of Boston, which has historically paid lower amounts than other cities around the country, but it's not a large sum if you look at the country as a whole," said Michael Avery, a professor at Suffolk University Law School and author of a leading reference manual on police misconduct suits. ''The evidence against the city was pretty bad. They had officers who weren't trained on this particular weapon using it under circumstances where the weapon should not have been employed. You had a political embarrassment for the city, and I think they probably didn't want to see all that fully ventilated at trial."

For some, the settlement is not enough.

''Her family should receive more," said Mike Morello, a 26-year-old real estate agent from Somerville who said he was standing on top of a parking garage about 20 feet from where Snelgrove fell and lay bleeding after she was shot.

Suzanne Smalley, Jonathan Saltzman, Shelley Murphy, and Megan Tench of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.Donovan Slack can be reached at

dslack@globe.com.

source url: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/03/snelgroves_weigh_suit_against_gunmaker?mode=PF

Add a comment on this article

Main Menu

Take Action

Search

topics

categories

regions

Community

Non-Profit Sponsors

News

City of Boston pays $5 million to pepperball victim's family