The City of Independence settled the lawsuit filed by the family of a young mother and her baby killed in 2024 by Independence police for $5.89 million.
That is the biggest police brutality settlement in Missouri history, according to the family’s attorney Tom Porto.
KCUR obtained the settlement documents with a public records request under the Missouri Sunshine Law. The settlement was announced May 17, but the amount remained undisclosed until all parties signed the documents.
Maria Pike, 34, and her daughter, Destinii Hope, were shot multiple times by an officer responding to a domestic disturbance call at an Independence apartment complex in November 2024. Pike was wielding a knife when Officer Jordan White fired multiple times.
White and his partner Chad Cox are no longer with IPD, according to the city.
Independence Police released a highly edited body cam video of the incident about three weeks after Pike and Destinii were killed.
Both suffered “great physical pain” before their deaths, according to the lawsuit filed last July in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Destinii was shot once in the head and “survived for several minutes, gasping and choking to breathe and letting out faint cries,” Pike’s parents and Destinii’s father charge in the lawsuit.
Pike’s parents, Tom and Lynne Pike, will receive $2.945 million, according to court documents.
Baby Destinii’s father, Mitchell Holder, will get the same amount.
Despite the massive, record-setting settlement, the court documents say “payment is not to be construed as any admission of liability, ALL LIABILITY BEING EXPRESSLY HEREBY DENIED.” (Emphasis original).
The city stressed that in its statement. “This settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by Independence Police Department,” the first line read. The killings were “a devastating day for the families of Maria Pike and Destinii, for our officers, and for the entire Independence community,” the statement said.
Two weeks after the killings, former Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman said the officers “acted exactly as they were trained to do.”
“What good is one of the largest settlements in the history of this kind of work if there is no change?” Porto said in a statement. “This unprecedented tragedy demands swift changes in every part of the police department’s mental health emergency response process, from officer training to leadership accountability,” he said.
Last March, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson declined to charge the officers.
The previous record settlement for police brutality was for the 2019 killing of Terrence Bridges Jr. by Kansas City police. That case settled for $5 million.
