A Missouri judge has awarded more than $23 million to a former St. Louis police officer who was assaulted by other officers while working undercover at a 2017 protest.
On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte granted Luther Hall a substantial amount of damages after a defendant failed to respond to a lawsuit over a 2017 attack.
“Mr. Hall had to endure this severe beating and when it happened he knew it was being administered by his fellow officers who were sworn to serve and protect,” White said.
After Jason Stokely, the white police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man, was acquitted, Hall went undercover at a protest and was seriously injured by his own colleagues.
According to Buzzfeed News, Hall was pushed to the ground and beaten with a baton by police, causing permanent injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Last year, the St. Louis Police Department reopened an internal investigation into the incident, KSDK reported.
Hall told KMOV in a 2022 interview that police officers at the 2017 demonstrations were motivated solely to harm protesters.
“I could have been anything, but being black definitely didn’t help,” Hall said.
Police also lied in an incident report about Hall’s attack, writing that “Hall was struck against the concrete and knocked to the ground” during the arrest.
Hall previously sued the city of St. Louis over the attack in 2021 and later reached a $5 million settlement.
In 2022, Hall sued three former law enforcement colleagues for their roles in the attack: Randy Hayes, Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers, all of whom are white.
Hayes has not responded to Hall’s lawsuit, although he is incarcerated for his role in the attack. In 2021, Hayes was sentenced to four years in prison for using unreasonable and excessive force against Hall.
Boone was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on civil rights charges related to the attack, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Myers was on probation for his role in the attack.
Hall’s claims against Boone and Myers continue.
After Monday’s verdict, attorney Lynette Petruska issued a statement on behalf of Hall, saying, “Luther is grateful that Judge White took the brutal attack of his colleague and its life-changing consequences more seriously than the city of St. Louis and the St. Louis Police Department did.”
Reporting by the Associated Press
