The parents of a Florida State graduate who was killed in a failed 2008 drug sting, after being set up as an undercover informant because she had been caught with drugs, has been awarded a $2.6 million settlement by Tallahassee city commissioners.
R.H., 23, was fatally shot due to police negligence in setting up the sting, contend her parents, and 3 out of 5 commissioners approved that they were due the settlement.
City Attorney Jim English said that the first $200,000 of the settlement will come from the city. Allegedly most governments cannot be sued under the legal principle of sovereign immunity – but Florida allows up to $200,000 in compensation in a limited waiver.
The rest of the settlement, however, could take years to pay as Florida Legislature has to pass a “claims bill.”
Passage of a claims bill is allegedly filed for years before lawmakers consider them.
I.H., R.H.’s father, said he was now “grateful for this part of it to be over.”
During a purported drug deal in a rural section north of Tallahassee, R.E. was shot five times when police had failed to keep track of her. Thirty-six hours later they did find her – her body was 50 miles away in a roadside ditch in Taylor County.
Two men are currently serving life sentences for her murder, D.B., 26 and A.G., 29.
R.H., a Safety Harbor-resident, was supposed to be doing a “buy-bust” enterprise for police. She had been sent, alone, with $13,000 in marked bills to buy three things: Ecstasy, cocaine and, a gun.
Instead of returning with the items, R.H.’s money, credit card, car, and then her life, were taken.
D.B. allegedly drove R.H.’s body – in her Volvo – to Taylor County before dumping her in a ditch. He then cleaned the inside of the car with bleach and drove, with W.G. to Orlando.
Using some of the marked money, the two men purchased jewelry and clothes.
Due to R.H.’s death, Florida Legislature passed a new law under her name. The law requires that police adopt policies that would better protect informants as well as additional training for investigators that work with informants. Informants are also not to be promised any type of reduction to their sentences and, they will be allowed to discuss the arrangement with an attorney – before doing a thing.
Tallahassee police fired the investigator that oversaw R.H. – but, he was later reinstated. In an in investigation into R.H.’s death, a grand jury found that police were negligent. The jury felt that R.H. should never have been sent to meet the two men alone, and should have never been let out of sight.
English confirmed that the first $200,000 sum that the city was paying would come from the city’s risk management fund.
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