Mother of unarmed man shot by Boise police reaches settlement agreement with city
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Nearly two-and-a-half years after Boise officers shot and killed Zachary Snow, who had a history of mental illness, the city has reached a settlement agreement with his mother.
The city will pay Melissa Walton $190,000, according to a news release. Walton sued the city in both federal and state court criticizing the way officers approached Snow.
Walton told police that Snow was “depressed, off his meds and he was unarmed” and accused the officers of rushing in, according to the federal lawsuit. The wrongful death lawsuit, which accused the officers of excessive force, also criticized the Police Department’s handling of someone experiencing a mental health crisis.
“The settlement was reached after both parties evaluated the merits of the case and the resources required for extensive litigation,” according to the city’s news release. The city declined to comment further.
Walton told the Idaho Statesman by phone that what she really wanted was a systemic change in the way police respond to mental health crises. But the financial cost of continuing to fight in court, the commute to Boise and the negative impact the lawsuit was having on her life made settling the best choice, she said.
Instead of the city offering her money, Walton said, she wished they’d focused on retraining officers on how to respond to someone in crisis.
“It’s very disheartening that their idea of dealing with this situation is to throw money at it instead of making the change,” Walton said.
In October 2021, Walton, of Clarkston, Washington, contacted police with concerns that her 26-year-old son was suicidal and attempting to jump off a downtown building. Boise officers after learning Snow had a warrant out for his arrest established a plan to arrest Snow, who was sitting in an alcove near South Capitol Boulevard and West Myrtle Street, according to an investigative report obtained by the Idaho Statesman.
When the officers approached Snow with their guns drawn, he pulled out a hard black object and “took a shooter’s stance,” according to Boise police. Officers Matt Jacobs and Clifton Snodderly fired their guns, shooting Snow, who later died at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise. Police later said they discovered that the object was a portable speaker.
Both officers were cleared of wrongdoing by the city’s Office of Police Accountability and by the Gem County Prosecutor’s Office, which led the investigation by the Critical Incident Task Force that’s deployed in police shootings
While all of the officers were informed by Ada County dispatch that Snow had a warrant out for his arrest, none of them knew what the warrant was for at the time of the shooting, according to the investigative report. Online court records showed a judge issued a misdemeanor warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for an August 2021 hearing.
