Before the San Diego City Council agreed this month to pay $30 million to settle the lawsuit over the police shooting of 16-year-old Konoa Wilson, an attorney for the boy’s family delivered a blunt message to the city: If the case went to trial, the verdict could surpass $100 million. The mediatio n brief filed earlier this year by plaintiffs’ attorney Nicholas Rowley helps explain why the case moved so quickly — settling just seven months after it was filed. It also explains why city officials ultimately agreed to what may be the largest settlement ever paid in a police-shooting case, surpassing the $27 million Minneapolis paid to George Floyd’s family in 2021. Mediation briefs are a common step in personal injury and wrongful death cases, though they are usually kept confidential until a case is resolved. In the brief, Rowley pointed to his history of securing large jury awards but also spelled out how recent changes in California law might affect how the case would play out in court. He argued that those changes, combined with the evidence in the case, left the city facing a potential jury verdict that would far exceed any settlement amount. At the center of that calculation was evidence that would not have been available a decade ago: body-worn camera footage capturing the shooting itself. Before body-worn cameras and widespread surveillance footage, fatal shootings often turned on competing accounts that required years of depositions and expert testimony to resolve, said longtime civil rights attorney Mike Marrinan. “It’s very different from relying on testimony about what someone says happened,” he said. “When you actually watch someone’s final moments, it has enormous impact.” Attorneys say the ability to predict jury behavior has also improved. Tim Scott, who represented the family of William Hayden Schuck in a $16 million in-custody death settlement with San Diego County, said password-protected survey platforms allow attorneys to present evidence and competing narratives to dozens of participants to gauge how jurors might assess damages. “You might get 12 or 16 people at an in-person focus group,” Scott said. “Our last round of surveys had about 150 participants. It’s a game changer.” Konoa Wilson was fatally shot Jan. 28 after fleeing gunfire near the Santa Fe Depot. Surveillance footage shows the teenager running away from a trolley platform and down a corridor leading to Kettner Boulevard. This undated photo provided by Trial Lawyers for Justice shows Konoa Wilson, left, posing with his father, Steven Lee Wilson. (Trial Lawyers for Justice via AP) At the same time, San Diego Police Officer Daniel Gold and another officer were responding to an unrelated report of an assault nearby. When the other officer heard gunshots, he radioed “shots fired,” according to court filings. Gold ran toward the sound. As Konoa emerged from the corridor, he crossed paths with Gold. Body-worn camera footage shows Gold firing almost immediately and captures Konoa screaming in pain before collapsing. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about 35 minutes later. The teen’s parents sued the city and Gold in June. Konoa was their only child. Rowley filed his brief in late August, and the City Council voted unanimously to approve the settlement on Dec. 9. Under the agreement, the city will pay $5 million directly. The remaining $25 million will come from a shared public-liability fund used by multiple municipalities. A memo from the City Attorney’s Office emphasized that the settlement was “a business decision and the result of a compromise” and not an admission of liability. Ibrahim Ahmed, a spokesperson for City Attorney Heather Ferbert, declined an interview request. “We can’t comment or discuss litigation strategy,” he said. Shortly before the vote, City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera offered the Wilsons “sincere and deepest apologies for what is the worst nightmare of any parent.” He said it was fair for the public to ask how the council had come to the decision to settle for such a large amount of money. In an interview last week, Elo-Rivera said the decision to settle rested on two considerations: avoiding further harm to Konoa’s family and the financial risk of taking the case to trial. “There’s kind of two sides to this,” he said. “One is the importance of not causing even more harm to a family that has already suffered the greatest possible harm — losing a child.” The second, he said, was fiscal. “The risk of a judgment that was significantly greater than the settlement was very real,” he said. When San Diego police released video of the incident in late February, the department noted that Konoa had a gun under his clothing. Rowley said the boy had the gun because he was half-Black and being targeted by local gangs. “He had been beat to a pulp and put in the hospital more than once, and so somehow he got a gun to try to protect himself,” Rowley told The San Diego Union-Tribune in a Dec. 5 interview. “But it’s a gun he never shot. I don’t believe the gun had any bullets.” There is no indication in the body-camera video or surveillance footage of the trolley platform that Konoa ever brandished or fired the gun or that he was holding it when he was shot. Police later arrested another 16-year-old as the suspected shooter on the platform. Rowley said the fact that police found a gun would not have mattered at trial. “That wouldn’t even come into evidence, because it was not an issue at the time that the officer fired his two shots,” he said. Both the lawsuit and mediation brief argue that San Diego police violated Assembly Bill 392, the state law that says police can use lethal force only when necessary to defend human life and requires that officers make reasonable efforts to identify themselves and issue warnings before firing a weapon. Prior to the law, introduced by then-San Diego Assemblymember Shirley Weber in 2019, deadly force by a police officer was considered justified if it were found to be “reasonable” under the circumstances. Video shows Gold did not announce himself as a police officer until after firing his gun. Court filings argue he lacked sufficient time to assess whether Konoa posed a threat. “One second is not enough time to perceive and react and justify shooting a 16-year-old in the back,” the mediation brief says. A 2022 law, SB 447, allowed juries to consider — and base awards on — the pain and suffering a person experienced leading up to their death. Jurors could award tens of millions of dollars for Konoa‘s pain and suffering alone, Rowley argued, in addition to wrongful-death damages for his parents. “Think about what it was like for this 16-year-old to feel these hollow-point bullets inside of his body and what it felt like to bleed to death internally and externally,” Rowley wrote in his brief. Elo-Rivera said he hopes the settlement sparks a larger conversation about how the city manages litigation risk, particularly in cases involving police use of force. “The settlements involving police, the verdicts involving policing — the decision is made, and we move on before we’ve talked about it,” he said. After Elo-Rivera’s comments at the recent City Council meeting, Councilmember Henry Foster III, who is Black, expressed condolences to Konoa’s family and said he worries about what might happen should his own son encounter law enforcement. “As a city, we have to do better,” he said. “There needs to be change. There needs to be serious change.” The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case, as is standard in police shootings. Gold, who had been with the department for about two years at the time of the shooting, remains employed by the department in an administrative role, a police spokesperson said. ...read more read less