Louisville will pay a $1.5 million out-of-court settlement to four young black men who were misidentified and wrongly arrested a year ago after mob violence downtown, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal. They were dubbed the “Misidentified 4.” Their attorney, Larry Simon, said there would be a “call to action regarding flawed witness identification procedures that have repeatedly resulted in egregious wrongful arrests and convictions.”
The Courier-Journal story described how a woman reported that she was robbed at gunpoint of her cellphone and purse but, with her boyfriend, could only describe the perpetrators as black, ages 16 to 20, and wearing black hoodies. The story described how Louisville Metro Police confronted the first four black men they found two blocks away, only two of them were wearing hoodies, and violated department policy in allowing the victim and witness to remain together as they identified the men, who were standing on the sidewalk under the glare of a police spotlight.