Family of man killed by SUV on highway after being shocked by Taser wins $5 million in compensation

DENVER (AP) — The family of a man who Hit and killed by an SUV on a highway after a deputy sheriff shocked him with a taser has agreed to a $5 million settlement with a Colorado county, lawyers and officials said Friday.

Larimer County Deputy Lorenzo Lujan used the Taser on Brent Thompson after Thompson ran away while attempting to arrest him on February 18, 2023. No charges were filed against Lujan, but when 8th District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin announced the decision last year, he said Lujan's use of the Taser showed “poor judgment.”

The law firm representing Thompson's family, Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, said the settlement with Larimer County reflects the “immense injustice” the deputy committed.

“Any reasonable person, let alone a trained law enforcement officer, should have known that tasering a person on I-25 under the cover of night poses an extreme risk of death or serious injury,” the company said in a statement, adding that Thompson was stopped for expired license plates.

Larimer County commissioners said in a statement that Lujan deployed the Taser to prevent Thompson from running onto the highway. They said they agreed to the settlement largely based on the advice of their insurers.

Sheriff John Feyen expressed his condolences to Thompson's family, but said officers had to make split-second decisions.

“We will continue to use this incident as a case study for internal discussions about complex decision-making processes, dynamic situations, safety priorities and the consequences of actions or inactions,” Feyen said in a statement.

Lujan still works for the department on patrol, sheriff's spokeswoman Kate Kimble said. An investigation found he did not violate sheriff's office policies and no disciplinary action was taken against him, she said.

According to the district attorney's 2023 letter summarizing the investigation into Thompson's death, Thompson turned off an exit on Interstate 25 after Lujan turned on his patrol car's headlights. But when Lujan tried to arrest Thompson, who allegedly gave a false name and did not have a driver's license, he ran down an embankment toward the highway.

Body camera footage showed Thompson walking off the side street onto the highway when Lujan deployed the Taser, and another officer said he saw Thompson fall to the ground on the north side of the roadway, McLaughlin's letter said. The second officer then saw approaching headlights and waved his flashlight to warn the vehicle to stop.

The man driving the Ford Explorer, which contained his wife and three children, said he saw something in the road and two people standing on the side of the road. He said he tried to drive away from the people and hit something in the road.

Lujan, who was working overtime, told investigators he wanted to arrest Thompson so he would not pose a danger to himself or to motorists on the highway.

However, the letter said that he had looked for approaching vehicles about 20 seconds before using the taser, but not immediately before using it about 15 seconds later. This was “a clear error in judgment.”