DAVE O’BRIEN LAW

Attorney At Law
dave@daveobrienlaw.com
1500 Center St. NE Tel: (319)861-3001
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52402 Fax: (319) 861-3007

NEWS RELEASE - 6/18/2018

In re: Autumn Steele, et al. v. City of Burlington and Jesse Hill

This civil lawsuit was settled two weeks ago. Autumn Steele’s family, including her
mother, Gina Colbert, her husband Gabe Steele and her two minor children thru their
fathers, Gabe Steele and Sean Schoff, announced today that the case was settled for
$2 million.

The family is relieved to have the matter resolved and is satisfied with the settlement.
Gina Colbert stated, “the dollar amount is recognition by the City of Burlington and
Officer Jesse Hill that Hill acted in a wrongful and unjustified manner in shooting and
killing my beautiful daughter.”

Lead counsel for the Steele family, Dave O’Brien, noted that “defense lawyers use
standard language denying any wrongful conduct in all settlements. However, everyone
should know that cities and their insurance carriers do not pay 2 million dollars to settle
a claim unless they have concluded the claim has significant merit.” O’Brien added,
“make no mistake about it, this settlement vindicates the Steele family’s claim that Hill
acted wrongfully in causing Autumn’s death.”

Gabe Steele added “nothing makes up for losing the love of your life, or for your three
year old son losing his mother, particularly when we both witnessed the horrific event
and were in Hill’s line of fire. We made the effort to pursue this claim to demand
accountability and to help make sure no other family has to go through what we went
through as the result of wrongful and reckless conduct by a sworn law enforcement
officer.”

The Steele family requested release of Hill’s body camera video as part of the
settlement. Burlington refused. Ultimately the family agreed to settle without requiring
the release of the video. The Steele family will continue to fight for the release of the
video because the public has the right to review this critical evidence and draw its own
conclusions regarding Hill’s conduct.

The family expects to release more details about the case as soon as determinations
are made regarding the effect of confidentiality orders previously entered by the court
and what materials are subject to those orders.