The city of Boston has agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle a wrongful death suit filed by the mother of Terrence Coleman, a mentally ill man who was shot to death by police in the South End in 2016 after his mother called 911 in an effort to get him help.
“No mother should have to witness her child killed at the hands of police and fight, the way that I have had to fight now for so many years, to gain accountability,” Coleman’s mother, Hope, said Tuesday in a statement released by her lawyers. “Nothing can bring Terrence back, but today at least some measure of justice has been done.”
The settlement comes after US District Judge Mark L. Wolf said he was “seriously considering” holding the city liable without a trial because its legal department failed to turn over evidence to lawyers representing Coleman’s mother as the case languished in federal court for years. On Monday, Wolf granted Hope Coleman’s motion to dismiss the case.
The motion filed by Coleman’s attorneys said she “reached a settlement agreement and mutual release with the assenting parties, and she no longer wishes to prosecute this action against any defendants.” Two police officers, who were named in the lawsuit and said the shooting was justified, did not agree to the settlement, however Coleman has agreed not to pursue any claims against them.
“It is shameful that the City of Boston fought a grieving mother tooth-and-nail for so long,” Sophia Hall, deputy litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, which represents Hope Coleman, said in a statement released by the organization Tuesday.
William Fick, one of Coleman’s attorneys, said her lawsuit “uncovered grave deficiencies in the readiness of Boston police and EMS to serve persons in mental health crisis.”
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The agreement says the city will make settlement payments of $3.4 million to Terrence Coleman’s mother and estate, and $1.2 million for her legal fees. The city already paid Hope Coleman’s legal team more than $700,000 for expenses it incurred while battling the city over its failure to turn over evidence, according to court filings. As part of the settlement agreement, it will pay her lawyers another $100,000 for their work on the case in January.
“Terrence Coleman’s death was a tragic event, and we continue to hold Ms. Coleman and all of Terrence’s family and loved ones in our hearts,” Ricardo Patrón, a spokesperson for the city, said in a statement. “The City, the Boston Police Department, and Boston EMS are committed to providing the best possible care, services, and protection for people and families experiencing mental health crises.”
Patrón said the settlement doesn’t include an admission of liability by the city. However, he said the city “acknowledges that its procedural failures within the litigation process delayed resolution of this matter for all involved and risked a default judgment against the City instead of a trial where the facts of this event could be fully addressed in a courtroom.”
On Oct. 30, 2016, Hope Coleman called 911 for an ambulance shortly after 12:30 a.m. because her 31-year-old son, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had been outside in the cold for many hours and would not come inside their Shawmut Avenue home, according to her suit.
The Police Department and the Suffolk district attorney’s office, which investigated the case, say that after EMTs and police officers arrived, Coleman attacked the EMTs with a serrated kitchen knife. Two police officers who responded, Garrett Boyle and Kevin Finn, wrestled with him and then Boyle shot Coleman twice, according to a report from the district attorney’s office. Coleman died a few hours later.
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In 2018, Hope Coleman filed her suit against the city, its health commission, and the police officers who responded to the call. She disputed authorities’ characterization of what happened, and said her son never threatened anyone, didn’t have a weapon, and was shot without provocation after police barged into the foyer of her home. The suit alleged civil rights violations, wrongful death, and failure by the city to properly train its first responders to deal with people with mental illness.
On Tuesday, attorney Leonard Kesten, who represents Boyle and Finn, said, “My clients acted heroically that night to save the EMTs who were being attacked with a knife and they were anxious to get their day in court.”
The officers told the city and the judge they did not want to settle the case, Kesten said. They refused to sign a release that said they would not pursue any legal action related to the incident, and are currently “exploring their options,” Kesten said.
“There have been a lot of public statements defaming the officers, so they were not prepared to sign away their rights,” Kesten said. “How are they going to get their reputations back?”
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In the statement Tuesday on behalf of the city, Patrón said the city “continues to support the officers, who were called into an incredibly difficult situation, and responded to protect the lives of medical personnel on the scene. During this administration, the City has invested in alternative response programs for people experiencing mental health episodes, and we are determined to ensure continued support for mental health throughout our neighborhoods.”
A year ago, Wolf found the city had failed to turn over evidence to Hope Coleman’s lawyers, mostly about policies related to use of force by officers and how they handle incidents involving people with mental illness.
“Only as a result of Hope’s courageous efforts and her dogged pursuit of this 6-year-old lawsuit, we now know that, before Terrence was killed, the BPD wrote but never implemented a de-escalation rule that was intended to reduce the well-documented dangers from interactions between police officers and ‘emotionally disturbed persons,’” said Daniel Marx, one of Hope Coleman’s attorneys. On the night Coleman died, no social workers or specialized resources were available to assist the officers who responded to the Coleman home, he said.
During a hearing in federal court in December over whether the city should be held in default, Hope Coleman testified that she called 911 on that day in 2016 at the suggestion of her son’s therapist, because her son wouldn’t come out of the cold for hours during a mental health crisis.
“I miss my baby and I feel bad that I called,” she said. “I was trying to help my son.”
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Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her @shelleymurph.