Phoenix may pay after police point guns over stolen doll

PHOENIX (AP) — The Phoenix City Council will vote Wednesday on a settlement for a Black couple who had police officers point guns at them in front of their children last year after their young daughter took a doll from a store without their knowledge.

The settlement with Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper is expected to be approved, local activist Jarrett Maupin said. It stems from a $10 million claim the couple's attorney, former state Attorney General Tom Horne, filed in June 2019. The claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, alleged excessive force by police and a violation of the family's civil rights.

It comes during a national reckoning over racism and police brutality and as violence has erupted at protests in Wisconsin over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man.

The Phoenix Police Department, in the nation's fifth-largest city, has been criticized for its use of force, which disproportionately affects Black and Native American residents, The Arizona Republic reported. The department also has one of the highest shooting rates in the country.

The expected payment would be one of the latest by the city over police actions. Payouts in connection to excessive-force or wrongful-death claims have totaled millions of dollars in the last several years, The Republic reported.

The police encounter with Ames and Harper in May 2019 got widespread attention when bystander video spread online. Afterward, the police chief fired an officer and the department required a written report whenever an officer points a gun at someone. The mayor also created an committee to get public recommendations on police reform.

Employees at a store told officers who responded to an unrelated shoplifting case that the couple's 4-year-old daughter had taken a doll. Ames and Harper, who was five months pregnant, didn't know about the doll and had...