Baton Rouge Proposes a $10M Settlement in the Wrongful Death Lawsuit of Alton Sterling

With a trial date less than two months away in the Alton Sterling wrongful death lawsuit, a newly elected member of the East Baton Rouge Metro Council is asking his colleagues to approve a $10 million proposal to settle the case — twice what the previous council rejected and four times the amount that the parish’s attorneys offered last year.

Council Member Cleve Dunn, Jr. is set to introduce the item next week with a vote and discussion scheduled for the council’s Feb. 10 meeting. It proposes paying Sterling’s five children $2 million a year for the next five years, with the first installment coming out of the city-parish’s $17.7 million insurance reserve fund.

Lawyers for the city-parish in November offered to settle the case for $2.5 million. That proposal was ultimately turned down by Sterling’s heirs, who lost their father in a 2016 police shooting that ignited protests nationwide and continues to divide Baton Rouge.