His Mother Called 911 for Help With a Mental Health Crisis. Six Officers Came, He Was Tased and Held Face Down, and He Was Dead Within the Hour.
After trial: This is a settlement, not a verdict, and no court found liability; the city expressly did not admit wrongdoing. The amount is reported as $3.7 million by WFYI, on the basis of a copy of the settlement document obtained by FOX59. Two caveats on precision. Our own earlier research notes carried the figure as $3,750,000 and described payment in installments running through January 2028, but neither the exact figure nor the installment schedule appears in the reporting we can cite, so we publish the reported $3.7 million and flag the discrepancy rather than assert a number to the dollar. Separately, the criminal case is a different proceeding with a different standard of proof: the two charged officers were acquitted on all counts in 2024, and the Marion County Coroner's homicide ruling is a medical determination of manner of death, not a finding of criminal or civil liability. On the cap, the Indiana Tort Claims Act limits recovery against governmental entities on state-law claims, but does not apply to claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Won by Waples & Hanger.
Gladys Whitfield called 911 on April 25, 2022 asking for help for her son, who was experiencing a mental health crisis. Six Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded. Herman Whitfield III was tased and restrained face down until he stopped responding. He was pronounced dead at a hospital within the hour. The coroner ruled it a homicide.
What happened
On April 25, 2022, Gladys Whitfield called 911 from her home in Indianapolis. Her son, Herman Whitfield III, was experiencing a mental health crisis and she was asking for help for him.
Six Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to the call.
What followed ended with Whitfield tased and then restrained face down on the floor until he was unresponsive. In the department's own released footage he can be heard telling the officers, more than once, that he could not breathe. He was pronounced dead at a hospital within an hour of the call his mother had made.
In July 2022 the Marion County Coroner ruled the death a homicide.
Two of the responding officers were criminally charged. Their trial was held in 2024 and both were found not guilty on all counts. The four other officers who were present were never charged.
In 2023 Whitfield's parents brought a wrongful death action against the city and the responding officers. In March 2026 that case settled. The defendants agreed to pay the family $3.7 million, and the city did not admit wrongdoing.
The reason the figure is what it is has to do with which law the claim was brought under. Indiana's Tort Claims Act caps what a governmental entity can be made to pay on a state-law negligence claim, at levels well below this. Those caps do not reach a federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A case pleaded as a constitutional violation is not subject to the state's limit, which is why an in-custody death in Indiana can resolve in seven figures when a negligence claim against the same defendant could not.
The family was represented by Richard Waples of Waples and Hanger in Indianapolis. His statement on the settlement was brief: the family was satisfied with the resolution and devastated by the loss of their son, and hoped the outcome would make this kind of death less likely in future.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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