Metro to settle in 2 deaths

Jen Lawson

Friday, May 21, 2004 | 9:53 a.m.

Metro Police are expected to pay settlements totaling $400,000 to the family of an unarmed man who was shot and killed by an officer last year and to relatives of a detention center inmate who allegedly committed suicide in his cell in 2001.

The department's fiscal oversight committee, composed of Clark County commissioners and Las Vegas City Council members, will be asked to approve the settlements at its monthly meeting Monday.

The mother of 28-year-old Orlando Barlow stands to receive $300,000 to settle a federal lawsuit alleging civil rights violations and wrongful death. Her lawsuit names Officer Brian Hartman, who shot Barlow, and the police department as defendants.

Barlow was shot Feb. 28, 2003, as he was about to be handcuffed outside a home near Rainbow Boulevard and Russell Road where he allegedly had held a woman's seven children hostage.

A coroner's inquest jury ruled that Hartman's shooting of Barlow was excusable, meaning the shooting was not entirely acceptable but was also not considered criminal. During the inquest, Hartman testified that he shot Barlow with an assault rifle from about 50 feet away after Barlow put his hand in his waistband while kneeling on the ground in an apparent surrender.

Shiela Barlow's suit against Metro was originally filed Feb. 17 in Clark County District Court and was moved to U.S. District Court March 10.

The FBI is looking into the shooting and Metro's internal affairs officials are investigating the activities of Hartman and other officers in the aftermath of the shooting.

The fiscal affairs committee will also be asked to approve a $100,000 settlement in connection with the suicide on Sept. 1, 2001, of a Clark County Detention Center inmate.

Officials said Rodney Brown, 45, tied his limbs behind his back and hung himself from a bunk with a bedsheet. Brown's widow, Kimberley Brown, filed a civil rights suit against the department alleging that jail officials were told Brown was suicidal but he wasn't placed on a suicide watch.

At the time Brown was in jail for his third domestic violence battery arrest.