Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, who killed an unarmed Black man during a 2015 traffic stop, has reached a settlement agreement with his former employer to receive $250,000 in back pay and an additional $100,00 for legal fees.
After pulling Sam DuBose over for a missing license plate in July 2015, Tensing shot the unarmed father of 13 in the head. The encounter was caught on video, sparking protests and calls for action. The University of Cincinnati fired Tensing after the shooting.
He was later tried for murder, twice, but the jury deadlocked in the case.
Tensing released a statement about the settlement and admitted he was “satisfied” with how things turned out.
“I’m satisfied with the settlement agreement with the University of Cincinnati,” he said. “This case has caused a lot of strife in the community, and I believe the settlement will allow for healing to continue; it certainly will do that for me after two difficult trials.”
After the shooting, the Fraternal Order of Police, Ohio Labor Council filed a lawsuit on Tensing’s behalf that argued the university wrongfully fired Tensing instead of placing him on administrative leave.
While the settlement agreement will no doubt inflame the community, current UC president Neville Pinto told students and faculty he hopes they can all come together.
“I realize this agreement will be difficult for our community,” Pinto wrote in an email to the UC community. “I am nevertheless hopeful that we can focus on supporting each other as members of the same Bearcat family — even, perhaps especially, if we don’t agree.”
DaShonda Reid, Dubose’s fiancée and the mother of four of his children, was not pleased by the news of Tensing’s six-figure settlement and called the former cop “a paid assassin.”
“I’m very upset with UC paying that murderer Tensing,” Reid told the Cincinnati Enquirer in a text message. “He’s officially a paid assassin who has not shown one ounce of remorse for killing an innocent man. To even want compensation (after) murdering an innocent man shows how soulless and callous he is.”
In 2016, the university reached an agreement with DuBose’s family worth $4.85 million (only $100,000 came directly from UC), which included tuition for the slain man’s children, an on-campus memorial, and a commitment to tackling police reform. But according to Reid, all of the positive changes UC enacted after DuBose’s death have been erased by settling with Tensing.
“UC has now reversed any of the rights they attempted to do by Sam,” she said. “His blood is not only on Tensing’s hands (and) the justice system, it’s now on UC’s hands.”