The city of Fort Worth, Texas, will pay Zion Carr, who witnessed the fatal police shooting of his aunt Atatiana Jefferson in 2019, a $3.5 million settlement, city officials said.
Zion, then 8, was at Jefferson’s home playing video games with her when then-Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean shot and killed the 28-year-old while responding to a call requesting a welfare check.
Watching his aunt’s death unfold in front of his eyes caused Zion to suffer “anxiety, terror and agony,” according to a federal lawsuit his mother, Amber Carr, filed in 2021. It said that Zion had been left with “severe and extreme mental and emotional distress” and blamed the city for his trauma. Two years after the lawsuit was filed, Amber Carr, who was Jefferson’s sister, died after a long battle with congestive heart failure.
The city announced earlier this month that it had proposed a $3.5 million settlement. The Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the payment.
“I for one, am excited about this opportunity to make sure that he can go to college and do things that his mother and his aunt wanted him to do as they were raising him,” Councilman Chris Nettles said, thanking Mayor Mattie Parker and the council for its work getting the settlement approved.
Parker said in a Nov. 2 statement that the payment was “the right thing to do.”
“I hope this can bring a degree of reconciliation and healing for Atatiana Jefferson’s loved ones,” she said.
The attorney representing Zion could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
Jefferson was home babysitting and playing video games with Zion around 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2019, when she heard a noise outside. Dean did not announce himself as a police officer, the family has said, and…
Read the full article here
