LA to pay $14.3m to family of man shot

Los Angeles : Los Angeles County has agreed to pay $14.35 million to the family of a man mistakenly shot by police during a search for a wanted gang member, the family’s attorney said. The settlement, one of the highest ever paid by the county, was reached earlier this year but the amount had not been made public. Frank Mendoza, 54, was fatally shot on August 1, 2014 by a sheriff’s deputy who mistook him for Cedric Ramirez.

Ramirez, 24, a parolee wanted on felony charges, had broken into the Mendoza home during a police chase in LA’s Pico Rivera neighborhood. Several members of the family managed to escape from the house. But when Mendoza tried to flee through the front door, a deputy mistook him for Ramirez and shot him once in the forehead and once in the leg, according to a report of the incident.