The city of Portsmouth, Virginia, has agreed to pay the family of William Chapman $1m to avert a civil lawsuit over the unarmed black 18-year-old’s fatal shooting by a police officer.
Two sources closely familiar with the negotiations, who were not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the settlement had been agreed by both sides in principle but had not yet been formally signed.
Officer Stephen Rankin shot Chapman dead in the parking lot of a Walmart superstore in the city in April last year during a confrontation over an alleged shoplifting. It was Rankin’s second deadly shooting of an unarmed man.
Rankin, 36, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the shooting last month. He had been charged with murder. A jury recommended a sentence of 2.5 years in prison. Judge Johnny Morrison will formally sentence Rankin on 12 October. Rankin’s attorneys have said he will appeal against his conviction.
Chapman’s mother, Sallie, and her attorney Jon Babineau declined to comment on the agreement.
Babineau had been readying a lawsuit against Rankin, the city of Portsmouth and Ed Hargis, the city’s police chief at the time of the shooting.
The lawsuit, on behalf of Chapman’s family, was expected to argue Hargis and city authorities should never have allowed Rankin to work as a police officer. Rankin was terminated from his job after being indicted for murder over the Chapman shooting.
In an article that first confirmed Rankin as the officer who killed Chapman, the Guardian disclosed in June last year that alarms were raised within the Portsmouth police department about Rankin’s conduct even before his first deadly shooting of an unarmed man.
The Guardian published a series of articles about Chapman’s fatal shooting to coincide with the launch of the Counted, an investigation to document every death caused by police in the US.
Earl Lewis, a cousin of Chapman who has acted as a family spokesman since the shooting, credited the articles with setting in motion the prosecution of Rankin.
“It instantly changed things,” Lewis said following Rankin’s conviction. “Nobody was listening to what we had to say but your article gave Sallie a voice. If it wasn’t for the Guardian, we wouldn’t be here.”
A grand jury previously declined to bring charges against Rankin for fatally shooting Kirill Denyakin, a hotel cook from Kazakhstan, in April 2011.
Rankin shot Denyakin 11 times outside an apartment building in Portsmouth after a 911 caller reported that the 26-year-old was banging loudly on the front door. The officer alleged Denyakin charged at him and reached for his waistband.
