Seattle has agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of a partially deaf man who was shot and killed by a police officer last fall on a downtown street in the middle of the day. John T. Williams, a member of the First Nations Tribe and woodcarver, can be seen on the video below holding his carving knife while crossing the street. When he did not drop it when ordered to do so by police, he was shot five times. The city's police department investigated and called the shooting "unjustified" but prosecutors said no charges would be filed against the officer who did the shooting, Ian Birk, who resigned. The Justice Department is now investigating the police department. The video below does not show the actual shooting, but the policeman can be heard shouting, “Hey, put the knife down.”
