In this Sacramento Bee piece, Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton expose a secret settlement agreement in which Citrus Heights paid the parents of Hunter Todd $2 million to settle their federal civil rights suit over the 2013 shooting death of their son. See Selenis/Todd v. Citrus Heights, No. 2:13-CV-2576-GEB-KJN. The Bee reports that the settlement agreement barred those involved from contacting the media due to "the sensitivities of the case." The agreement also censored the parties from commenting on the case other than via an agreed upon three paragraph public statement, which is reproduced in the Bee article. (Apparently, the settlement agreement was sealed as the Bee needed to obtain it through a California public records request instead of pacer.) And it precluded Todd's parents from posting any comments on social media about the case.
Of course, that doesn't apply to me. Putting aside the appropriateness of the sealing of matters of important public interest, what seems most troubling to me is that Todd's parents said Citrus Heights pressed for a provision barring them from pursuing a criminal prosecution of the officer, which they refused. The Bee says the officer swore in a deposition that "he shot Todd in the back as the 135-pound young man lunged face-first into his pickup truck to get a gun." But no gun was found and an autopsy showed the bullets entered Todd's chest, neck, and an arm, but not his back. Todd's parents and their attorney referred the matter to the FBI last Fall seeking a criminal investigation into the shooting death. No word whether an investigation was instituted or is still pending.
What right does Citrus Heights have in attempting to bar a federal investigation into one of its officer's fatal shooting of an unarmed man?