The $17 million Oakland agreed to pay the family of Lolomania Soakai — killed in an unauthorized 2022 police pursuit — ranks among the largest single-family payouts in city history. But the deal, struck in late July with a trial bearing down, still isn't final: the Oakland City Council has to sign off, and it doesn't reconvene until September.

The agreement caps a four-year fight that traveled from a late-night food stop in East Oakland to the U.S. Supreme Court and back. It produced a Ninth Circuit precedent that stripped two officers of qualified immunity, a cover-up that unraveled after a fellow officer came forward and then-Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong moved to fire the pair, and body-camera audio of police joking that they hoped the driver they chased had died. What's left is the civic step that converts a lawyers' deal into public money — a Council vote, in a city that has spent the year scrambling to balance its budget.

Just after 1 a.m. on June 26, 2022, Lolomania "Lolo" Soakai, 28, an airline supervisor, was standing at a taco truck near 54th Avenue and International Boulevard with relatives, unwinding after a family graduation. Blocks away, two Oakland police officers — Walid Abdelaziz and Jimmy Marin-Coronel — spotted 19-year-old Arnold Linaldi leaving a sideshow and took off after him, running the pursuit dark: no lights, no siren, no call to dispatch. Department rules did not permit a chase like this over a minor offense. Inside the department, the maneuver has a name — a "ghost chase."

Linaldi lost control and plowed into a line of parked cars and motorcycles. One motorcycle, launched by the impact, came down on Soakai, who died at the scene. Injured in the wreck were his mother, Lavinia, and three cousins: Samieuela Finau, Ina Lavalu and Daniel Fifita. The Oaklandside has followed the family's case from the start.

What turned a traffic death into a civil-rights case was the officers' conduct afterward. In body-camera footage released earlier this year (external source, opens in a new tab), the two were recorded joking about the wreck and saying aloud they hoped Linaldi was dead, then leaving — before circling back with their lights on, as if arriving fresh to a scene they had caused. That deception did not hold up inside the department. KTVU (external source, opens in a new tab) reported it was exposed by a fellow officer who spoke up and by then-Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who moved to fire both men almost at once.

Inside the department, the maneuver has a name — a "ghost chase."

The family's attorney, Adanté Pointer, was pointed about who deserved the credit — not the courts, but the department's own accountability machinery. He told KTVU the truth might never have come out without "a thorough and fair internal affairs investigation" and a fellow officer willing to come forward.

Oakland fought the suit. The city and both officers invoked qualified immunity, and the officers argued they couldn't be held liable because the man who died wasn't the suspect they were chasing. A divided Ninth Circuit panel rejected that in May 2025 in Estate of Soakai v. Abdelaziz (No. 23-4466), clearing the family to sue (external source, opens in a new tab). Judges Susan Graber and Michelle Friedland reasoned that reckless conduct is no less shocking when it kills a bystander instead of the intended target, particularly when that harm is foreseeable, the Davis Vanguard reported (external source, opens in a new tab). The officers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in; it declined the case (external source, opens in a new tab).

Discipline inside the department lagged the courts. The two officers received termination letters in 2023. They stayed on paid administrative leave for years afterward. Both resigned in 2025. Linaldi pleaded guilty in May to vehicular manslaughter and drew a two-year prison term.

The city declined to say anything beyond confirming the dollar figure. That figure arrives while Oakland wrestles with its budget, and it isn't the region's only recent nine-figure lesson in the price of misconduct: Alameda County agreed in May to a $36 million payout over a double homicide committed by a former sheriff's deputy.

For the Soakai family, the last step is procedural but real. Until the Council votes in September, the $17 million is a promise on paper — not a check.