BATON ROUGE- East Baton Rouge metro council member Chauna Banks will introduce a proposal on Wednesday, June 24, that would allow the parish attorney's office to offer a settlement with the family of Alton Sterling.

The proposal of $5 million would come from insurance reserve funds to resolve the family's civil suit against the city and police department.

Sterling was shot and killed in 2016 at the hands of a Baton Rouge police officer. His death sparked national outrage and protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Due to several other court matters and disputes that directly impact the case, hearings on the lawsuit have been tied up since 2017.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, courts across the state have suspended non-emergency hearings just before the original trial date in April of 2020.

Trial hearings for a wrongful death lawsuit are set to begin in March of 2021, brought by Sterling's family.

Lawyers representing the sterling family met with attorneys representing the EBR Metro Council to discuss a settlement amount in October of 2019.

The metro council could not decide on accepting the amount, returning to the negotiation process or continuing to a trial during a vote in December of 2019, so the case was automatically rescheduled to go to trial.