The Denver suburb of Aurora agreed this week to a $1.9 million settlement with a family of Black girls who were handcuffed and held at gunpoint by police three years ago, reports the Associated Press. Video of the young girls lying facedown and being put in handcuffs had triggered outrage, yet prosecutors found no evidence that the police committed any crime. So the family sued, claiming that the officers’ actions were evidence of “profound and systematic” racism.
Though prosecutors described the incident as "unacceptable and preventable," they said that officers were merely following their training, conducting a high-risk stop of what they suspected -- incorrectly -- was a stolen vehicle. One of the officers who stopped the car, Darian Dasko, was suspended for 160 hours. He and the other officer, Madisen Moen, still work for the department. Notably, Aurora settled another misconduct suit in 2021, to the parents of Elijah McClain, 23, who was was killed in 2019 after he was stopped as he walked down the street, placed in a neck hold and injected with a sedative.