NEW ORLEANS -- The city has agreed to pay more than $2.8 million to settle suits by 13 people who claim police mistreated them, or killed relatives, while investigating the 1980 slaying of patrolman Gregory Neupert.
The settlements, contained in federal documents unsealed Tuesday, range from $800,000 for a child present when his mother and her boyfriend were killed by police to $15,000 to a child taken to police headquarters with his mother.
The agreements were reached March 7 in the lawsuits filed as a result of the so-called 'Algiers 7' incidents. There had been 55 defendants in the lawsuits, mostly police officers and supervisors.
The settlement also mandates the city pay attorneys' fees in the cases.
The suits claimed police conspired to punish blacks in the Algiers section of New Orleans in revenge for the slaying of Neupert, a white officer found shot to death beside his patrol car in November 1980.
Four black residents were killed by police searching for Neupert's killer and charges of police brutality eventually led to the resignation of Police Superintendent James Parsons.
State and federal grand juries declined to charge any police officers with wrongdoing in the four deaths or other violent acts. A federal jury in Dallas, however, found three officers guilty in 1983 of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Algiers residents.
The incident and the Dallas trial led to a national debate over the clash between a free press and a fair trial when a federal judge unsuccessfully tried to block CBS from televising a '60 Minutes' segment about the case.
