St. Louis Settles Cortez Buford Lawsuit for $1.7M. Liar White Cop Shot Black Man 2X in the Back and Multiple Times in His Face. Claimed Black Man Pointed a Gun at Him but There Was No Light in Alley

From [HERE] A Black family is settling for nearly $1.7 million a wrongful death lawsuit against a white police officer who shot and killed a 24-year-old Black man in 2019.

The man, Cortez Bufford, died four years after he settled another lawsuit against the same department for a traffic stop in which eight officers beat him up.

His parents, Tammy and Antoine Bufford, filed their federal suit in 2020 against St. Louis police Officer Lucas Roethlisberger and a host of other defendants, all of whom have since been dismissed from the case.

Roethlisberger shot and killed their son near a BP gas station in south St. Louis after chasing him down an alleyway.

The proposed settlement, filed Tuesday, spells out that of the $1,687,483, just more than $550,000 would go to attorneys' fees and another $136,000 would go toward other legal expenses. The Buffords would get about $998,000. The settlement is still subject to a judge’s approval.

The shooting happened Dec. 12, 2019, when Cortez Bufford and his friend Terrell Phillips went to the BP gas station on Bates Street in south St. Louis, the lawsuit says.

St. Louis officers were sitting across the street from the gas station when Bufford went inside the store and purchased cigarettes and a drink, the lawsuit says.

Surveillance footage shows Bufford wearing a "man bag," and officers said his gun was visible in the bag, a claim the Bufford family's lawyers disputed in the suit.

After making his purchase, Bufford walked to the side of the building to smoke a cigarette, the lawsuit says.

While standing there, the lawsuit says Roethlisberger pulled up behind Bufford and yelled, "Put your junk away."

The lawsuit does not explain what the officer was referring to.

Roethlisberger then got out of the car and started to run at Bufford without identifying himself or saying anything else, according to the lawsuit.

Bufford ran.

Roethlisberger drew his gun and gave chase.

Phillips, the man Bufford came there with, yelled that Roethlisberger "better not shoot him."

Roethlisberger holstered his gun.

Bufford ran down an alleyway and stopped at a fence, the lawsuit says.

Casings tell a different story

"Roethlisberger still had not identified himself, had not given any commands to Cortez, had not asked him to stop or otherwise even identified himself as a police officer," the suit says.

Bufford escaped and ran back toward the street. As he was crossing Bates Street, another officer hit Bufford with his police Tahoe, the suit says.

He was knocked down to the ground and an officer radioed that he saw Bufford had a gun. The officer and his passenger both said they could see an extended magazine protruding from Cortex's bag.

The lawsuit said this was proven to be false after the shooting, because the officer "couldn’t have seen Cortez, or whether Cortez had a gun," the lawsuit says.

After Bufford was hit by the car, he ran down a dark alley nearby, and Roethlisberger gave chase.

Roethlisberger said he went toward the alleyway and saw Bufford draw a pistol and point it at him, "despite the fact that there was no light in the alleyway."

"Roethlisberger claims that he was at the mouth of the alleyway, but a picture of shell casings tells a different story," the suit also says.

Roethlisberger fired twice. A 911 caller reported hearing the two shots, the lawsuit says.

Those shell casings were the farthest from Bufford's body. Roethlisberger then fired nine more shots as he walked down the alleyway, the lawsuit says.

Bufford was shot twice in the back and multiple times in his face, the suit says.

His finger was also shot and severed, without damaging the gun, the lawsuit says. Lawyers argued that this means Bufford was not holding the pistol when he was shot.

"These facts demonstrate that Defendant Roethlisberger walked into the alleyway, and then continued to approach Cortez as he fired his sidearm, and he was not fleeing as he said in his statement," the lawsuit says. "(Roethlisberger) did not fear for his life, he was the aggressor in this situation."

After the shooting, there is a video of Roethlisberger and another officer "throwing a heavy object between them," the suit says.

"A pistol is found and photographed that is covered in blood, but the blood appears smeared all over the pistol, including on top of the chamber, and also on bullets within the magazine of the pistol, this indicates that the gun was not chambered at the time it was covered with blood," the lawsuit says.

Bufford did not have blood on his hands, the suit says.

'We're red right now'

The 2019 shooting happened just four years after Bufford settled an excessive use-of-force lawsuit with the city for $20,000.

He'd been pulled over in April 2014 for an illegal U-turn and driving a car suspected in a recent "shots fired" incident, according to Post-Dispatch reporting.

The cop pulled Bufford out of his car, pushed him to the ground, and eight officers began to assault him, court records say.

The Post-Dispatch reported in 2015 that while the beating was escalating, an officer is seen looking toward the camera and yelling, “Hold up. Hold up, y’all. Hold up. Hold up, everybody, hold up. We’re red right now, so if you guys are worried about cameras, just wait.”

"Red" was police slang for a running camera.

The officer turned off a dashboard camera in the middle of the arrest.

The assault garnered national attention, and Bufford sued in 2015. The settlement came later that year.

Roethlisberger, who still works for the St. Louis police department, has also found himself in the news over the years: He's been shot twice in the line of duty.

The first time was in 2010 during a traffic stop on Enright Avenue. The bullet severed his carotid artery, destabilizing his spine and causing a debilitating stroke, he said during a November 2024 court hearing.

He returned to work about nine months later, and he was honored as the department’s 2010 Officer of the Year.

The second shooting happened in February 2023 when he and another officer attempted to pull over a car near Soulard. The driver, Cortez Sipes, fled and crashed his truck. [MORE]