Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement

The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.

Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement

Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.

The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.

In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.

The incident

In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.

Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.

Wrongfully detained

But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.

Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.

And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.

Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.

Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized

Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.

After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.

The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.

Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint

One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.

However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.

To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.