Nearly three years after an unarmed Marine was shot and killed by two police officers in a Palm Springs parking garage, the city of Palm Springs has settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the Marine’s family. The trial was scheduled to start next week, but the city’s insurance company agreed Tuesday to pay $2.5 million to the family of Corporal Allan “AJ” DeVillena. DeVillena was celebrating the Marine Corps’ birthday with a friend in Palm Springs on November 10, 2012. Bicycle officers Chad Nordman and Mike Heron suspected DeVillena was drunk as he pulled his car out of the parking garage. When he refused to stop, one officer dived through an open window of the car to stop the car, and the other officer, who said he feared for his partner’s life, opened fire. DeVillena was shot six times and died at the scene. Last year, the district attorney’s office cleared the officers of wrong doing. As part of the settlement for the wrongful death suit, the Palm Springs police department agreed to discourage officers from shooting at moving cars and to work with the Marine Corps to get drunk Marines back to the Twentynine Palms Marine Base safely.
CITY OF PALM SPRINGS SETTLES IN WRONGFUL DEATH OF TWENTYNINE PALMS MARINE
