City Pays for Murder by Police

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City of San Francisco agrees to settlement in girl's slaying by police

  Saturday, October 28, 2000
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(10-28) 15:05 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The city came to a tentative agreement to pay $505,000 to the family of a 17-year-old girl shot and killed by plainclothes police in 1998 during a drug bust.

The settlement with the family of Sheila Detoy came after a federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the girl's mother.

Detoy was a passenger in Michael Negron's Ford Mustang in 1998 when she was struck by a bullet fired by police officer Gregory Breslin. Breslin was part of an undercover task force investigating Raymondo Cox, who was in the back seat of the Mustang. Cox was wanted on a $50,000 warrant.

The officer who fired the fatal shots during an attempted drug arrest of Detoy's companions claimed the car she was in was about to pin him to a wall and was traveling at about 30 mph.

However, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer noted that attorney's for Detoy's family submitted crucial evidence that the car was traveling five-miles-per-hour and that the officer's life was never in danger.

``How do you get two or three bullets in that tight a pattern into a car going 30 mph,'' said Ronald Wecht, attorney for the Detoy family. ``You can't shoot that fast.''

Considering the Detoy family's version of events, ``a reasonable jury could find that Breslin was not merely reckless, but rather acted with an intent to injure unjustified by a legitimate government interest.''

Breslin has maintained that he fired into the car to stop it. His three shots wounded Negron and killed Detoy. Breslin was cleared of wrongdoing by the police department, but a civilian complaint office is still reviewing the case.

San Francisco Police Chief Fred Lau said the settlement terms were reasonable and that the department has supported Breslin's version of events all along.

``We're really sad our actions resulted in her death. Nobody really wanted that to happen,'' Lau said.

The settlement will still need to be approved by the Police Commission on Wednesday and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.