The City of Evanston has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit filed by a Northwestern University doctoral candidate against the city and four police officers after the then-PhD student was arrested and accused of stealing his own car, attorneys and the city manager have confirmed.

Attorneys for former Northwestern student Lawrence Crosby said the settlement amount was $1.25 million, and though Evanston City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz confirmed a settlement had been reached, he declined to provide the amount pending final City Council approval at its Jan. 28 meeting.

Attorney Steven Yonover, who represented Crosby, said his client hopes the case results in education efforts surrounding bias.

“It’s his hope that as a result of this case, that all of us begin a discussion on implicit bias and begin to recognize it and begin to discuss it between yourselves and your friends,” Yonover said.

Crosby's civil lawsuit, filed Oct. 11, 2016, in Cook County Circuit Court, cited false arrest and excessive force, and asked the city of Evanston and the arresting police officers to pay at least $50,000 for "compensatory and punitive damages, fees, costs and such other relief."

The suit was filed almost exactly one year after Crosby, then 25, was pulled over, subdued and arrested by police responding to a call from a woman who said she believed he had stolen the car he was driving.

It turned out, however, that the car was Crosby’s, police eventually confirmed. An engineering doctoral candidate at Northwestern University, Crosby was driving from his apartment to the science building on campus when police arrested him, according to his attorney, Timothy Touhy.

Crosby was arrested and charged with disobeying officers and resisting arrest, according to a police report, even after officers learned the car belonged to him.

A video of the arrest was released Jan. 11, 2017. The video includes an audio recording of a 911 call from a woman who said she saw a black man wearing a black hoodie trying to steal a car.

She followed Crosby in her car as he drove, giving his location to police. Officers arrested him in the 1500 block of Ridge Avenue, according to the police report.

The woman had seen Crosby as he tried to repair loose molding on his car, Touhy said.

Crosby can be heard on the video telling police he was trying to fix something on his car, according to the video, which was released following an alderman's request.

The video released by Evanston police includes dashboard camera recordings from both an Evanston police car and a camera that Crosby had installed on his own dashboard.

In the videos, Crosby can be heard talking on his cell phone, telling someone that he is being followed. He says that, as a black man, apparently he cannot work on his car at night. He was subsequently pulled over by police.

The police video shows Crosby getting out of his car with both hands up, holding a cell phone in one hand. Officers approached Crosby with guns drawn. Police ordered Crosby to get down and when he did not quickly comply, a group of officers rushed him and brought him to the ground. Crosby said that officers hit and kneed him.

After learning that Crosby owns the car and it is in good standing, the officers talk about their next steps.

Crosby was arrested and charged with disobeying officers and resisting police, according to the police report. A judge later threw out the charges, Touhy said.

At the time, an Evanston Police Department spokesman said the use of force by police was justified as officers were responding to what they thought was an auto theft. The spokesman said officers delivered knee strikes and open-handed strikes to major muscle groups, as trained. He said Crosby later told officers the reason he hadn't immediately complied with their instructions was that he had been trying to move to the front of his car so that any ensuing interaction would be captured on his dashboard camera.

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook