Tentative deal in Jerame Reid police shooting

NEWARK - The family of a black man killed by police in South Jersey in 2014 has reached a tentative settlement in its federal lawsuit.

Details were filed Friday and must be approved by a judge.

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Thirty-six-year-old Jerame Reid was shot by two Bridgeton police officers, one black and one white, after he refused their order to stay in his vehicle. A grand jury in Cumberland County declined to indict the officers last summer.

Under the tentative settlement, Reid's infant son would receive about $1.5 million in periodic payments starting when he turns 18.

Reid's widow would receive $200,000 which includes legal fees. His mother and the mother of his child would each receive $70,000.

Under terms of the settlement, Bridgeton and its police department deny liability.

Attorneys didn't return messages Saturday seeking comment.

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Reid was a passenger in a Jaguar police pulled over for running a stop sign on Dec. 30, 2014. Video from the police cruiser's dashcam was released last year. It showed the situation turning tense when one of the officers warned his partner he could see a gun in the glove compartment.

The officers had arrested Reid previously on charges of resisting arrest and knew he had served about 13 years in prison after being convicted as a teenager of shooting at state troopers, investigators said.

Screaming repeatedly "Don't you f---ing move!" and "Show me your hands!" at Reid, who was sitting in the passenger seat, Officer Braheme Days reached into the car and removed a handgun.

At one point, Days addressed Reid by his first name and said, "If you reach for something, you're going to be f---ing dead."

Days told his partner, "He's reaching for something."

Faintly on the video, Reid can be heard telling the officer: "I ain't doing nothing. I'm not reaching for nothing, bro. I ain't got no reason to reach for nothing."

The video showed Reid getting out of the car with his hands up, but Days — who was holding both his service weapon and the recovered gun — told investigators he believed Reid "had a weapon or was planning to take the handgun(s) out of his hands."

Prosecutors said Days fired seven shots and partner Roger Worley fired once. The shooting lasted approximately 2 seconds and Reid was hit in the chest and left arm, according to prosecutors. Days is black and Worley is white.

The shooting stirred anger in Bridgeton, a struggling, mostly minority city of 25,000 just south of Philadelphia. It occurred in the wake of killings of black men in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, that triggered months of turbulent protests, violence and calls for a re-examination of police use of force.

Last week, New Jersey legislators proposed a bill to require a special prosecutor to investigate whenever someone is killed by a law enforcement officer.