South Carolina City to Pay $700K to Family of Pregnant Woman Shot by Cop

The family of a pregnant woman shot and killed by a Woodruff police office will be given $700,000 to settle a lawsuit over the killing.

Lacey Lamb’s family said the 28-year-old woman was trying to stop the car instead of trying to run over officer Todd Knight in October 2012.

Knight said he was in fear for his life when he fired on Lamb. A prosecutor declined to press criminal charges. Knight left the Woodruff force last year and the settlement says he can never work for the city again.

Lamb’s family sued Knight, the police department and the city of Woodruff, according to the Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reports.

Knight was trying to pull the car over for a seatbelt violation in October 2012 when driver Matthew Simmons jumped out and ran, leaving the car in gear, authorities said.

Lamb was trying to move from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat to try and stop the car when she was shot, her family’s attorney Ryan Langley said.

She was 5 months pregnant, which made it harder to get behind the wheel, according to the lawsuit.

There was no dashboard camera in Knight’s cruiser and the car was too old to have a data recorder that would have told if the vehicle was accelerating or slowing down when Lamb was shot, Langley said.

Police found a handgun, more than 60 rounds of ammunition and methamphetamine in the car.

Simmons was arrested shortly after Lamb was killed. He is serving a 10-year sentence for trafficking methamphetamine and possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.