Photo: Officer Brad Miller
The City of Arlington will pay the family of Christian Taylor $850,000 after Officer Brad Miller shot and killed the 19-year-old in August 2015.
Surveillance video showed the unarmed teen jumping on cars and breaking windows at a car dealership.
CBS DFW reports that six officers were on the scene, including Miller, who was in training, and his training officer, Cpl. Dale Wiggens. Police Chief Will Johnson said that one officer confronted Taylor through a glass door, as Miller entered the showroom through the hole broken in the wall without telling Wiggens where he was going.
“Officer Miller exercised inappropriate judgment by entering the building alone,” Chief Johnson said. “This unilateral decision to enter the building and to continue pursuit deeper into the building upon making contact with Mr. Taylor, along with failing to communicate with fellow officers or develop an arrest plan, created an environment of cascading consequences that produced in unrecoverable outcome.”
The Arlington City Council formally approved the full and final $850 settlement with an 8-0 vote at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
Miller, who was on probationary status at the time of the shooting, was fired shortly after the incident.