The city of Dallas has agreed to pay $900,000 to the family of an unarmed man fatally shot in 2010 by a police officer, an attorney for the man’s family confirmed Friday.
The family of Tobias Mackey alleged in a federal civil rights lawsuit that former Officer Matthew Tate unjustly shot Mackey seven times on Oct. 29, 2010, in the breezeway of a crime-plagued east Oak Cliff apartment complex. In testimony earlier this week, Tate and Police Chief David Brown defended the shooting. But two officers on the scene that night didn’t fully back their former colleague.
Attorneys had planned to make closing arguments Friday before a jury, but agreed to settle the case around 11 p.m. Thursday after three days of testimony.
“It’s always hard in the middle of a trial because once you put on the case, you really want to know what the jury feels about what they heard,” Susan Hutchison, an attorney for the Mackey family, said Friday. “But in this situation, I just think it was best for everyone involved.”
The civil case gave Mackey’s family their long-awaited days in court and $900,000 to share with their attorneys, pending City Council approval. And the city, which has paid out millions of dollars in recent years from lawsuits against officers, avoids the risk of a jury ordering offiicials to pay the family what it had asked for: $5.4 million.
City attorneys did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
Hutchison said she believes the family doesn’t feel the amount is enough for a human life. But the case was about more than money for them, she said.
“They got a lot of relief out of having their day in court,” she said.
Mackey’s father, Eric, his mother, Sheila Lewis, and his longtime girlfriend Jovanna Mackey, who took his last name, all testified earlier this week. Jovanna — who was not legally married to Tobias Mackey but is the mother of his three young children — described him as “an awesome dad.”
Lewis, who lives in Georgia, testified she had a mental breakdown after her son’s death. She now wears wigs because she said her medication made her hair fall out.
Lewis sobbed and often rambled on the stand. But when Grant Brenna, an assistant city attorney, asked her if she needed a minute to gather herself, she bluntly replied: “No. I’ve been waiting for this day for three years.”
Tate, 32, testified that he thinks about the shooting “every day” and wished it hadn’t happened. A grand jury declined to indict him and he later left the department, citing stress the job put on his marriage.
He said he had no choice but to shoot Mackey, who stopped in his tracks when he turned a corner and saw the officers. Mackey didn’t appear to be committing a crime at the time. He had been warned about criminal trespass at that apartment complex months before, but the officers didn’t know that when they saw him.
Tate said the breezeway was dimly lit and Mackey hid his left hand near the waistband of his baggy clothes despite repeated commands to show his hands.
Tate said he shot Mackey after he jolted his left hand forward as if he were pulling a gun. He said he never saw Mackey’s hands, but would pull the trigger again if faced with the same circumstances.
Two bullets went through Mackey’s hands into his chest. Hutchison suggested that Mackey may have been trying to show the officers his empty hands.
Officer Johnnie Fitzgerald, who was in the parking lot during the shooting, testified that he heard Tate shout only once for Mackey to show his hands, followed almost immediately by gunfire.
And Sgt. Kenneth Chapin, who was standing feet away from Tate during the incident, testified that he didn’t think the shooting was necessary because he didn’t see Mackey as a threat. He said he planned to grab Mackey because he appeared likely to run away.
But Brown testified that Mackey’s apparent refusal to show his hands at the apartment complex in the 3800 block of Bonnie View Road, where Tate had previously arrested armed suspects, was “very threatening.”
He also said Chapin is now under an internal affairs investigation because he never expressed any qualms over the shooting until he was deposed in the case last year.
The settlement is the latest in a series of six-figure payouts for lawsuits involving the Police Department. ADallas Morning News analysis has found that the city has totaled nearly $6.5 million in six-figure payouts involving the Police Department since 2011.
Among those settlements was $150,000 paid to the family of an 11-year-old boy who was struck in the arm by one of Tate’s bullets.
Hutchison said she hopes the City Council will approve the settlement next week.
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