In a historic admission of liability, the US city of San Diego has agreed to pay a staggering $30 million (approx. KES 3.9 billion) to the family of a 16-year-old boy shot in the back by police. The settlement, announced Friday, stands as one of the largest payouts for a police shooting in American history.

The agreement resolves a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the parents of Konoa Wilson, a mixed-race teenager killed in January 2025. The payout surpasses the $27 million (approx. KES 3.5 billion) settlement awarded to the family of George Floyd in 2021, casting a harsh spotlight on the persistent global crisis of excessive force and racial profiling in law enforcement.

Running From Danger, Met by Death

The tragedy unfolded on January 28 at the Santa Fe Depot train station. According to court documents and surveillance footage, Wilson was not the aggressor but a victim fleeing for his life. Another teenager had approached Wilson and opened fire, prompting the 16-year-old to run toward a station corridor.

Officer Daniel Gold, a two-year veteran of the force responding to an unrelated call, encountered the fleeing teen. Body-worn camera footage released by the department reveals a split-second decision with fatal consequences: Gold drew his weapon and fired at Wilson’s back as the boy ran past him.

Crucially, the footage confirms that Officer Gold identified himself as police only after pulling the trigger. Wilson was pronounced dead at a hospital 35 minutes later.

The Price of Impunity

While police later discovered a concealed firearm on Wilson’s body during first aid, investigators and family attorneys emphasized that the teen never brandished the weapon nor threatened the officer. The civil lawsuit accused Gold of “racial violence,” arguing he shot a Black teenager simply because he was running.

For Kenyan readers, the scale of this settlement is difficult to overstate. To put the KES 3.9 billion figure into perspective:

• It is roughly equivalent to the entire annual development budget of some Kenyan counties.
• It dwarfs the compensation typically offered in local cases of extrajudicial killings, which often drag on for years without resolution.

Steven Wilson, the victim's father, expressed a sentiment familiar to many families in Nairobi who have lost sons to "killer cops." In a statement to the press, he noted that his son was "killed by a police officer while running away from gunshots fired by a third party."

A Global Reckoning

The settlement is a "business decision" by the city of San Diego, avoiding a potentially higher jury verdict, but it does not officially constitute an admission of guilt by Officer Gold. However, the sheer size of the payout signals a shifting landscape where municipalities are being forced to financially reckon with the actions of their officers.

"He’ll never be able to get married or finish high school," Wilson’s cousin, Lila Silva, told reporters. "Anybody could be turning that corner. Any one of us, and you would be shot dead, all because you were turning that corner."