January 06, 2017
The city will pay $4.4 million to settle a lawsuit with a take-out deliveryman mistakenly shot multiple times by plainclothes police officers in West Philadelphia back in 2014.
According to an Associated Press report on the settlement, which was announced on Friday, 23-year-old Phillippe Holland now suffers from a seizure disorder and chronic pain as a result of being shot in the head, face and leg by two officers who had wrongly pegged him to be a suspected gunman.
As described in the lawsuit file in federal court in Philadelphia, officers Mitchell Farrell and Kevin Hanvey were in the area investigating reports of a shooting when a witness pointed them in the direction of Holland, also in the area making a food delivery.
The plainclothes officers approached Holland, and court documents state he mistook them as robbers, causing him to enter his vehicle through the passenger-side door and attempt to flee, "fearing he might be the target of an impending robbery."
The officers, also mistaking the situation, then began to fire at the vehicle, striking Holland in the head, face and leg, and causing him to crash his car.
The lawsuit also claims that when uniformed officers arrived at the scene, Holland tried to report the shooting, but was instead handcuffed.
The Associated Press reported that part of the settlement includes new training for plainclothes officers, which focuses on such officers identifying themselves and showing their badges. The officers involved in the incident remain on desk duty while an internal review continues, the report noted.
Read the full Associated Press report here.
