$3 million settlement reached in Apple Valley police shooting

APPLE VALLEY (AP) -- The city of Apple Valley, its police department and insurers have agreed to pay more than $3 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a young Eagan man who was permanently paralyzed after being shot by a city police officer.

In settling the lawsuit filed by Gennadiy Balandin, 19, neither the police department nor the city admitted any wrongdoing by police officer Jim Eagle, said Police Chief Scott Johnson.

The settlement, to be finalized this week, is believed to be the largest reached between a police department and victim of a police-involved shooting in the state.

Balandin, now a paraplegic with bullet fragments lodged in his spine from the shooting, was naked and unarmed but has admitted he was high on the hallucinogen LSD when he was shot in October 2000.

The police department has maintained that Eagle shot Balandin, who was 17 at the time, only after Balandin attacked Eagle, and the two struggled over the officer's gun.

"Unfortunately, this case doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong or what is just," the chief said. "It has to do with dollars and cents."

But Balandin's attorney, Robert Bennett, said that forensic evidence -- and the lack of it -- contradicts the officer's version of events.

Balandin on Saturday repeatedly denied that he attacked the officer. He said he was nauseated from the drug and was seeking the officer's help.