November 9, 2020
(Reuters) – NBA guard Sterling Brown agreed on Monday to settle his lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for $750,000, after a police officer used a Taser on him during a January 2018 arrest for a parking violation.
Brown, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, said in the lawsuit filed in June 2018 that officers used excessive force and violated his Fourth Amendment rights during the arrest.
Body-cam footage released to the public showed several officers wrestling him to the ground and then using a Taser on him. The Milwaukee city attorney said Brown was initially approached because he had parked in two handicapped parking spots at a Walgreens store.
Following an investigation of the incident, then-chief of the Milwaukee police Alfonso Morales apologized and said that the officers involved had acted “inappropriately.”
Brown, a Black man who was drafted in the second round by the Bucks in 2017, said after the body-cam footage was released: “Situations like mine and worse happen every day in the Black community.”
“The common denominator in all of these situations has been racism towards the minority community,” he added.
The proposed settlement, which the Athletic first reported, is pending approval from the city’s Common Council. It includes “an admission of a constitutional violation and a commitment to incorporate changes to Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedures,” according to a Nov. 4 letter to the council from the Milwaukee city attorney’s office.
The city attorney’s office and the Milwaukee police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
