Salt Lake County's largest police settlements of the decade

Cottonwood Heights' insurer paid nearly $4 million to the family of Zane James, 19, who was fatally shot by an officer in 2018.

• James was suspected of using an airsoft gun to rob two stores, fleeing on a motorbike, police said. An officer hit James' bike with his car, causing it to crash. The officer said he fired at James after the wreck because he thought he saw James reaching for a gun.
• Records from an internal police interview showed the officer's statements contradicted some of the details released by the department. He admitted he deliberately hit James' motorbike during the pursuit — which prosecutors determined was not justified.

The other side: Cottonwood Heights characterized the settlement as a "business decision" on the part of its insurer and stressed it did not amount to an admission of wrongdoing.

Linden Cameron

Salt Lake City paid $3 million to the parents of Linden Cameron, an unarmed 13-year-old boy with autism. He was seriously injured when an officer shot him multiple times in 2020 after his mother called 911 during a mental health crisis.

• Police at the time believed the boy made threats involving a firearm, but no weapon was found.
• "They opened fire on a young man who was unarmed," Nathan Morris, an attorney who represented the boy's family, told Axios. "That was the primary factor in getting a settlement."
• It was the largest civil rights settlement in the city's history. Prosecutors ruled the shooting was "unreasonable" but did not charge the officer.

The other side: "While the settlement is not an admission of liability, the parties agree that L.C.'s shooting was a tragedy," Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said in a prepared statement when the settlement was announced.

Danielle Willard

West Valley City and its insurer paid more than $1.4 million in 2015 to the family of Danielle Willard, who was fatally shot in 2012 by an undercover drug investigator who said he thought Willard was trying to run him over.

• The officer, Shaun Cowley, was charged with manslaughter after prosecutors deemed the shooting unjustified. But a judge threw out the case after an expert witness for the prosecutors said Cowley reasonably feared for his life.

The intrigue: The shooting spawned several other settlements after follow-up investigations uncovered widespread misconduct in the department's "Neighborhood Narcotics Unit," which Cowley was part of.

• Cowley, who was fired but rehired after an appeal, then sued the department over a "hostile work environment." He accused the department of scapegoating him for the unit's misconduct, and the city settled for more than $100,000.
• After the unit was disbanded, other defendants it had investigated came forward with their own complaints of misconduct, leading to settlements worth at least $650,000.