Missouri has faced charges of police misconduct and made payouts from lawsuits.
The 2014 death of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot during an altercation with a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, drew nationwide attention and an ongoing civil lawsuit.
The shooting of Brown, 18, who was unarmed, was ruled justified. A grand jury cleared the police officer. However, Brown’s family filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Ferguson in April 2015, seeking punitive and compensatory
damages in excess of $75,000, CNN reported. The suit also named the police officer and former police chief.
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Another high profile settlement was reached in 2008, when the police department in Kansas City, Missouri, agreed to a $750,000 settlement with a woman who miscarried after a traffic stop in 2006,
according to a report in USA Today. Two police officers had failed to get medical treatment for Sofia Salva during the stop, which caused the death of her child, the lawsuit had charged.
The Kansas City Police Department and the two officers were named in the suit, which alleged that the officers repeatedly ignored her pleas for medical help while she was being
arrested, Fox News reported. A police videotape showed the woman telling officers numerous times that she needed to go to the hospital because she was pregnant and bleeding, according to Fox.
“I’m bleeding. I have a three-month baby inside,” Salva was heard saying on the videotape.
After the woman, a Sudanese native, made the request for medical help for the ninth time, a female officer had asked, “How is that my problem?”
Salva was held in jail overnight because of traffic violations and outstanding warrants. The lawsuit stated that after she was released the next morning, she delivered a premature baby boy who was declared dead one minute later.
Officers said they had stopped Salva because they saw her putting a fake temporary tag on the car’s back windshield.
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