Woman Shot in Back in Missouri Gets $2M Settlement

A St. Louis, Mo., suburb has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a federal lawsuit with a suspected shoplifter who was shot in the back by a police officer who said she intended to use her stun gun but pulled out her service revolver by mistake.

The city of Ladue admitted no wrongdoing in the confidential settlement with Ashley Hall. The agreement was released Friday to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in response to an open records request.

Police have said the incident began in April when Hall and another woman took a grocery cart of steaks and seafood from a Schnucks grocery store without paying. In the process, they said, Hall hit a Schnucks grocery worker “in the face with a bag of stolen merchandise.”

The lawsuit says that after store employees held Hall down in the parking lot, then-officer Julia Crews called for an ambulance to tend to Hall’s injuries and tried to handcuff her, despite saying she wasn’t under arrest. The suit said Hall then ran away in fear of “the history of unarmed black individuals being shot by white officers.”

That’s when Crews fired, striking Hall in the back. Crews, 38, resigned after the shooting and has pleaded not guilty to a pending charge of second-degree assault.