Grandmother Beaten by Cop Gets $1.5M

A 51-year-old grandmother punched repeatedly by a California Highway Patrol officer on the side of a freeway in an incident caught on video will receive $1.5 million under a settlement, and the officer has agreed to resign. The punching occurred after motorists' 911 calls reported that Marlene Pinnock, who is bipolar, was walking along the freeway and the responding officer pulled her from traffic, according to a legal document in the case. A statement from the California Highway Patrol said that Officer Daniel Andrew, who joined the CHP in 2012 and has been on paid administrative leave since the incident, "has elected to resign." He could still be charged criminally in the case.

"One of the things we wanted to make sure of was that she was provided for in a manner that accommodated her unique situation in life and that the officer was not going to be an officer anymore, and we secured those things," Pinnock's lawyer says. The July 1 video of Andrew punching Pinnock was recorded by a passing driver on Interstate 10 west of downtown Los Angeles. In an interview with the AP last month, Pinnock said she believed the officer was trying to kill her. "He grabbed me, he threw me down, he started beating me," she said. "I felt like he was trying to kill me, beat me to death." (More Marlene Pinnock stories.)