JACKSON, ma’am. — Mississippi’s capital has settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by survivors of a man who died after police officers pulled him from a car while searching for a murder suspect.
The Jackson City Council on Tuesday approved paying $17,786 to settle the lawsuit that relatives of George Robinson filed in state court in October 2019, WLBT-TV reported.
According to city documents, the settlement is not an admission of liability by the city or the three officers named in the lawsuit. Robinson was black, as were the three officers.
The payment to the family members – including Robinson’s sister, Bettersten Wade – was approved unanimously. But councilor Kenneth Stokes said he thought the settlement was too small.
“I’m saying it just sends the wrong message about human life, especially the lives of black people,” Stokes said. “I think paying the family a little more would have been a step in the right direction.”
The lawsuit alleges that in January 2019, the three officers “brutally, viciously and mercilessly beat Mr. Robinson by punching and kicking him.”
“Mr. Robinson had not committed any crime, was not the subject of an active arrest warrant, and posed no threat to himself or anyone in the area,” the lawsuit said.
Robinson, 62, had been hospitalized days before the police encounter due to a stroke and was taking medication, Wade said. Hours after being beaten, he suffered a seizure and died two days later from a hemorrhage in his brain.
Second-degree murder charges against two of the officers were dropped in the case. In August 2022, a Hinds County jury convicted former Detective Anthony Fox of manslaughter — and in January of this year, the Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned Fox’s conviction. A majority of the appeals court wrote that prosecutors failed to prove that Fox “acted in a grossly negligent manner” or that Robinson’s death “was reasonably foreseeable under the circumstances.”
Wade is the mother of Dexter Wade, who was run over by an off-duty Jackson police officer in March 2023.
Dexter Wade was buried in the Hinds County Pauper’s Cemetery, but it was October before his mother was informed of the burial.
His body was exhumed on November 13 and an independent autopsy was performed. A wallet found in the pocket of his jeans contained his state identification card with his home address, a credit card and a health insurance card, said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Wade’s family.
On November 20, Dexter Wade’s family held a funeral for him, and he was buried in a different cemetery.
