SAN DIEGO — The San Diego City Attorney’s Office has agreed to pay $30 million to the family of a 16-year-old who was shot and killed by police last January in what could be one of the largest settlements for a police-involved homicide case in U.S. history.
A resolution allowing the proposed settlement with Conoa Wilson’s family was added to the City Council’s agenda Tuesday morning.
“What happened to Konwa was a colossal police failure,” family attorney Nick Rowley said in a statement to the City News Service. “A 16-year-old boy was running for his life. He was not a threat or a suspect, yet he was shot in the back by a police officer who only saw him for a second before he decided to pull the trigger.”
If approved, the settlement would exceed the $27 million the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay to the family of George Floyd, whose May 2020 killing by a police officer who knelt on his neck sparked a nationwide racial reckoning.
Surveillance and body-worn camera footage from Jan. 28 showed Wilson running away from someone who pulled a gun and shot him at a downtown train station. While exiting the station, Wilson met San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gould.
In a lawsuit against City and Gold, the family alleged that the officer “immediately, without any warning,” fired two shots at Wilson, who was black, as he ran nearby, striking him in the upper body.
“Only after shooting DECEDENT and watching him fall to the ground did Defendant GOLD finally report to San Diego police,” the lawsuit filed in June said. “The defendants committed acts of racist violence against the teenager DECEDENT, shooting him in the back as he passed in front of the defendant GOLD, in an attempt to get to a safe place.”
Wilson was pronounced dead at UC San Diego Health Medical Center less than an hour later.
An agenda item posted Friday said the settlement would be paid from the Public Liability Fund.