LA to pay $300,000 to man injured by police during protest

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a $300,000 lawsuit settlement for a man who lost part of a testicle after he was shot by a police projectile during a 2020 protest over the killing of George Floyd.

The council approved a settlement of David Bond’s federal lawsuit alleging that the LAPD used excessive force and violated his civil rights in using a less-lethal projectile during a protest over police brutality and Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police.

The settlement, reached in January after mediation, was one of the first settlements among the many lawsuits filed over LAPD actions during May and June 2020 protests that sent thousands of people into the streets, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Bond contended that he was demonstrating peacefully near City Hall and followed police commands to back up before he was shot.

The city said Bond was seen on video using a tennis racket and a salad bowl to shield himself and others from LAPD projectiles but there wasn’t evidence that he threatened officers, according to a city document on the settlement that was reviewed by the Times.

In the wake of criticism and lawsuits, the LAPD provided reforms and new training for officers in the use of less-lethal projectiles.

A class-action lawsuit filed by the group Black Lives Matter Los Angeles also led to an injunction that restricts the use of hard-foam projectiles for crowd control.