The city of New Orleans has reached settlements totaling $13.3 million in lawsuits involving fatal police shootings after Hurricane Katrina and a deadly beating prior to the storm, its mayor announced Monday.

“I am hoping that in some sense the strength of these families will help the city find peace in our future,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a press conference Monday, apologizing to the 17 plaintiffs on behalf of the city.

The civil rights cases took over 11 years to settle because the city had to deal with criminal cases first, the Associated Press reported.

Twenty current or former New Orleans police officers were charged in several civil rights investigations following the August 2005 hurricane that devastated the city.

According to the AP, 11 officers pleaded guilty to charges related to a single incident on the Danziger Bridge just a few days after Katrina’s landfall in September 2005.

A 17-year-old boy and a 40-year-old mentally disabled man were unarmed when they were fatally shot on the bridge by police. Officers tried to cover up the incident, which wounded four others, by planting a gun, fabricating witnesses, and falsifying reports.

Five of the officers involved in that shooting plead guilty in April.

Credit: TheGedSection