photo by: Sara Shepherd/Journal-World File Photo

In this file photo from July 3, 2019, Lawrence resident Duc Tran is pictured in downtown Lawrence. Tran says his left elbow was fractured when a Lawrence police officer arrested him in June 2019.

The City of Lawrence agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a skateboarder who claims he was beaten by police and wrongfully prosecuted, an attorney representing the city told the Journal-World on Thursday.

Michelle Stewart, an attorney from Hinkle Law Firm who represented the city in the suit, said the city’s insurance provider was paying the $85,000 to settle the case. On Tuesday, a U.S. district judge signed an order to administratively close the case.

The suit stems from an incident on June 29, 2019, when then-Lawrence police officer Brad Williams arrested Duc M. Tran, 47, after stopping him for skateboarding in the street in downtown Lawrence. Police said at the time that Tran “shouted at and approached the officer with a skateboard raised overhead in a manner which led the officer to believe the subject was about to inflict immediate bodily harm upon the officer,” and Tran later told the Journal-World that during the arrest he suffered a fractured elbow and two dislocated shoulders. Tran was charged in Douglas County District Court with three misdemeanors, but charges against him were dismissed in November 2020.

Tran’s suit names Williams as a defendant. It also originally named several other people and entities, including former police Chief Gregory Burns, former Chief Assistant District Attorney Amy McGowan, former Assistant District Attorney LeTiffany Obozele, the Lawrence City Commission, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the Douglas County Commission, but by the end of the lawsuit, those defendants had been removed from the suit, according to court records.

Williams left the force in January 2021 and lost his certification to be a police officer in December 2022 after findings that he engaged in sexually biased policing, as the Journal-World previously reported.

— Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct the list of defendants.