Sean Bell’s daughters and two friends who were with him the night he was killed will receive a $7 million settlement as a result of the federal lawsuit they filed.
New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family and two friends of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man fatally shot by the police in 2006, on what would have been his wedding day.
The decision came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The children whom Mr. Bell had with his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, will receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode will also receive payments, with Joseph Guzman getting $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.
The lawsuit, filed in 2007, accused the police of wrongful death, negligence, assault and civil rights violations. But it had repeatedly stalled as the state and federal governments and city police officials investigated the shooting.
I AM SEAN BELL, black boys speak from Stacey Muhammad on Vimeo.
