Families of victims of Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting settle lawsuit for $18 million

By Mike Carter  | The Seattle Times The families of the five Marysville-Pilchuck High School students shot on campus in 2014 have settled a lawsuit against the school district’s insurance company for $18 million, according to documents filed in Snohomish County Superior Court on Monday morning. The settlement stems from a lawsuit alleging that a substitute teacher had been told of … Read More

Jury awards more than $15M to family of unarmed black man killed by SWAT sniper in Fife

By Mike Carter  | The Seattle Times Pierce County Metro SWAT assault-team leader Mike Wiley described the police sniper bullet that killed Leonard Thomas on the front porch of his Fife home in 2013, his 4-year-old son clasped in his arms, as a “frickin’ million-dollar shot.” A unanimous jury in federal court on Friday decided that single .308-caliber round would … Read More

Jury awards $1.9 million to Elias and $932,000 to Proudfoot

The Seattle Times A King County Superior Court jury on Monday found that Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole retaliated against two of three officers who were transferred out of the South Precinct amid a dispute over the handling of overtime pay. The jury found O’Toole retaliated against a veteran sergeant, Ella Elias, and Capt. David Proudfoot, the precinct commander. The … Read More

Attorney Lincoln Beauregard questions Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole

By Steve Miletich | The Seattle Times Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole testified Thursday she transferred a sergeant, lieutenant and captain out of the South Precinct to defuse a “powder keg” between warring officers, contradicting claims she retaliated against them in response to a dispute about the handling of overtime pay. “I can absolutely assure you there was no retaliation … Read More

When is Rape a Title IX Civil Rights Action?

 By Nathan P. Roberts & Anna L. Price | Trial News Title IX of the Civil Rights Act was enacted in June 1972 with the purpose of eliminating discrimination on the basis of sex in America’s education system.  In February 2012, as the forty-year anniversary of Title IX approached, a young woman was sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a … Read More

$1.3M settlement with victim of swim coach’s sex abuse

By Sara Jean Green | The Seattle Times   The North Whidbey Park and Recreation District has settled a lawsuit for $1.3 million, its third since last year involving women who were molested in the mid-1990s by their swim coach, serial pedophile Andrew King. A fourth woman filed a lawsuit against the district on July 1, seeking damages for the … Read More

City, Fehlman remain part of Ostling lawsuit

BY DENNIS ANSTINE A federal judge has denied a motion by the city and Police Chief Jon Fehlman to dismiss their inclusion in the civil rights lawsuit stemming from the shooting death of Douglas Ostling by a Bainbridge police officer on Oct. 26, 2010. U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton released a ruling on Tuesday that said the Ostling family … Read More

Judge won’t let Bainbridge Island, police chief out of wrongful shooting suit

BY TRISTAN BAURICK | The Kitsap Sun BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The city of Bainbridge Island and its police chief can’t duck out of a wrongful police shooting lawsuit they say should be directed solely at the officer who shot and killed a mentally ill man late last year, a U.S. District Court judge ruled this week. The pretrial ruling was … Read More