The family of Michael Brown, the city of Ferguson, former Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson and former police Officer Darren Wilson are nearing settlement of a lawsuit over Brown’s 2014 fatal shooting by Wilson, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A person familiar with the negotiations said that the settlement would be under $3 million, which is the limit of the city’s insurance. Any settlement, once finalized, would have to be made public under Missouri’s open records law.
Brown’s parents, Lezley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr., filed the lawsuit in May 2015, about nine months after their son’s death on Aug. 9, 2014. The suit claims that a culture of pervasive hostility toward African Americans led to the death of the 18-year-old. It said Wilson used excessive and unreasonable force, and Wilson and other officers were poorly trained. The suit sought unspecified damages.