The city of Oakland has agreed to pay one of its highest-ever legal settlements to the family of a 28-year-old man who was killed four years ago in a crash that was indirectly caused by a chase initiated by two rookie Oakland police officers.

As a trial was pending in a wrongful death case stemming from the June 26, 2022 death of Lolomania "Lolo" Soakai, following years in which the city and the police officers involved tried to argue that they weren't civally liable under statutes giving law enforcement "qualified immunity" in such cases, Oakland officials reached a settlement in late July, as KTVU reports.

Oakland has agreed to pay $17 million to Soakai's mother, Lavinia Soakai and his cousins, Daniel Fifita, Ina Lavalu, and Samieuela Finau, all four of whom were injured in the June 26, 2022, crash, along with Soakai who was killed.

The family members had all be standing near a taco stand at International Boulevard and 54th Avenue, just after 1 am on June 26, 2022, when a violent crash involving a speeding driver, several parked cars and a parked motorcyle led to the tragedy. A chain reaction reportedly led to the motorcycle becoming airborne and landing on Soakai.

19-year-old Arnold Linaldi had been seen doing donuts at a sideshow earlier that night by OPD officers Walid Abdelaziz and Jimmy Marin-Coronel. The officers followed Linaldi away from the sideshow and initiated a so-called "ghost chase," speeding after him without their lights or siren on — likely because such chases were not authorized under department policy for non-violent offenses.

While pursuing Linaldi down International Boulevard, the officers saw him crash into the parked vehicles and spin out at 54th Avenue. In bodyworn camera footage that would later become public, Abdelaziz and Marin-Coronel could be heard chuckling and joking about the crash, and audibly expressing hope that Linaldi died.

The two officers fled the scene and then quickly returned with their lights on, pretending they had not witnessed the crash or played a role in it. When their ruse was later discovered by then-Police Chief Leronne Armstrong, they were fired.

Linaldi survived the crash, and he pleaded guilty in May to vehicular manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to two years in state prison.

As the attorney for Soakai's family, Andante Pointer, said when the bodycam video was released earlier this year, "These officers were only concerned with cracking jokes, and actually said I hope that this person is dead."

Pointer added, "The two officers not only engaged in a ghost chase and took a person's life, but they also engaged in a conspiracy to cover it up. And then went to many lengths to avoid accountability. My heart broke for this family. But I also have a rage in me, that people sworn to protect us could be so callous."

Speaking to KTVU following the settlement, Pointer gave credit to the OPD, saying, "if not for a fellow officer doing the right thing by coming forward and seeing the extent and the lengths that these officers were going to cover up their involvement and avoid accountability, we may never have really gotten to the truth."

In January, the two officers, Abdelaziz and Marin-Coronel, appealed their case to the Supreme Court regarding their immunity from prosecution for the crash, following a ruling last by the Ninth Circuit that found they could be held liable. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.

While Alameda County has recently paid out large sums in wrongful death settlements — the largest, in May, being $36 million to the surviving teenage son of Benison and Maria Tran, who were killed four years ago in a love-triangle double-homicide by former Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy Devin Williams Jr — this marks one of the largest paid by Oakland to a single family.

As KTVU notes, the city agreed to pay a $33 million settlement in 2020 to families of 32 of the 36 victims in the 2016 Ghost Ship fire tragedy, but that settlement was shared among the 32 families.

Previously: Oakland Officers Heard Laughing About 'Ghost Chase' Crash That Killed One In New Video