JOLIET, Ill. (AP) - Will County agreed to pay $126,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a suburban Chicago police officer who was wrongly accused of being behind a deadly 2010 shooting spree in rural Illinois and Indiana.
The Chicago Sun-Times (https://bit.ly/1z7pGO2 ) obtained settlement documents using a Freedom of Information Act request showing the county and Lynwood police officer Brian Dorian reached a deal earlier this month. The authorities did not admit to any wrongdoing under the settlement.
Dorian’s attorney, Gregory Kulis, said Dorian is “relieved that this chapter of his life is closed.”
The shootings began at a rural construction site in Illinois, where the gunman shot and killed Rolando Alonso, 45, of Hammond, Indiana, and wounded Joshua Garza, a 19-year-old from Dyer, Indiana. Later, farmer Keith Dahl, 64, was wounded near Lowell, Indiana.
Suspicion initially fell on Dorian, 41, who was jailed on murder charges before he was cleared by forensic computer evidence that showed he was at home when the shootings happened. Police later blamed the attacks on Gary Amaya, of Rankin, who was killed in December 2010 with his own gun during what police said was an attempted robbery of a tanning salon in suburban Chicago.
Dorian filed the lawsuit in 2011 seeking more than $2 million in damages and claiming he was unlawfully imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and that his rights to due process were violated.
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Information from: Chicago Sun-Times, https://www.suntimes.com/index
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