The city of Charlotte, NC, has paid $950,000 to the family of James Michael Short, a student at Central Piedmont Community College who in 2017 died when he was struck by a speeding police car.
Just before the crash, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer Phillip Barker was reportedly driving up to 100 miles per hour in a 35 mile-per-hour zone when his car slammed into James Michael Short.
Short, 28, was walking across the street against the traffic light around 3:30 a.m. when he was hit, police said. The officer driving the car, Phillip Barker, was in a marked police car responding to a different crash at the time.
Barker, now 25, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and is awaiting trial. He is on unpaid administrative leave from the police force, according to his attorney, Michael Greene.
"We're eager to have our day in court," Greene said. "This wasn't a crime. It was an accident."
The city of Charlotte paid its settlement to Short's family in December.
