Tylon Outlaw will receive a $450,000 settlement from Hartford following a Tuesday night council vote to sign off on the deal. Outlaw was beaten with a police baton in a case of mistaken identity back in 2004. Courtesy photo.

Hartford's city council has agreed to a $450,000 settlement to be paid to a man who was beaten by police in a case of mistaken identity in 2004, ending his professional football career.

The settlement comes nearly three years after a federal grand jury awarded Tylon Outlaw, now 44 and the head football coach at Bloomfield High School, $450,000 in compensatory damages.

But Outlaw saw none of that money as the settlement became tied up in legal appeals.

The jury found that Officer Michael Allen, who beat Outlaw with a baton, violated his civil rights by using excessive force, leaving Outlaw with a large gash on the back of his head and a broken knee cap, ending his career with the Arena Football League.

At the time, Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled Allen could not be afforded qualified immunity. While qualified immunity is generally given to officers in cases where reasonable and not excessive force is used, Crawford found the force Allen used in his altercation with Outlaw was not reasonable. Allen said he had no means to pay the $450,000 settlement.

Outlaw's co-counsel, New Haven solo practitioner Anthony DiCrosta, told the Connecticut Law Tribune Thursday he expects Outlaw to receive the money from the city within a month.

“The closure brings tears to his eyes,” said DiCrosta, who spoke to Outlaw, a Wethersfield resident, soon after the council voted. “That is the magnitude of the relief he is feeling. Naturally, this was an incredibly traumatic experience which he overcame admirably.”

According to DiCrosta and the 2007 lawsuit Outlaw filed against the city, Outlaw was at a restaurant on Union Place in December 2004 when he noticed a cab parked outside the train station. Outlaw went to exchange greetings with the cabbie and the passengers, who he knew, when he was assaulted, DiCrosta said.

“He crossed the street to exchange Christmas greetings and pleasantries with everyone when Officer Allen mistook Outlaw for someone else. He was beaten with a baton and hit in his head multiple times,” DiCrosta said.

According to Allen's March 19 substitute complaint against Hartford, “multiple Hartford police officers were involved in the incident. Witness Anthony Carroll described the scene as a football fumble with people on top of Outlaw.” Allen retired in 2018.

Outlaw's lawsuit stated that, in addition to a broken knee cap, which required extensive surgery and physical therapy, he also had bloody contusions to his head and face and suffered psychological trauma.

Outlaw has been Bloomfield High School's head football coach for 10 years. During that time, he won state championships in both 2015 and 2018.

According to a September 2018 report in the Hartford Courant, city lawyers withheld dozens of complaints of police misconduct from the city's watchdog panel, the Civilian Police Review Board. For 12 years, the paper said, dozens of people who filed complaints of mistreatment at the hands of city police never had their cases investigated.

Representing Allen is Patrick Tomasiewicz of Hartford's Fazzano & Tomasiewicz. Tomasiewicz's only comment was that “It's been a long road for Mike Allen and we are glad to close the book on it.”

Assisting DiCrosta was Clinton solo practitioner Raymond Rigat.