Baldwin Park will pay $15,000 to local activist and attorney Paul Cook as part of a settlement reached in a federal civil rights lawsuit Cook filed last summer, city officials announced Wednesday.

The suit, filed June 3 with the U.S. District Court Central District of California, alleges that Baldwin Park police violated Cook’s constitutional rights when they arrested him July 24, 2014 during a public event at Morgan Park, 4100 Baldwin Park Blvd, and later strip searched him at a city jail. As part of the settlement, Cook will receive a total of $67,500, with the majority of the funds — $52,500 — coming from GEO Group Inc., a private correctional firm that operates the city’s jail facility.

Baldwin Park City Attorney Robert Tafoya said in a statement the city does not believe Cook’s rights were violated and the decision to settle was a financial one.

“The City did defend the case vigorously, as it promised,” Tafoya wrote. “The reason the lawsuit was settled is because these types of lawsuits usually take $150,000-200,000 in attorneys’ fees to complete. And, even if the City had defeated Mr. Cook in Court, which I believe it would have, the City could never have recovered those attorneys’ fees.”

Cook said he was surprised the city decided to settle in this case.

“I’m glad they did,” he said.

Before his arrest at Morgan Park, Cook was handing out leaflets critical of the city’s Recreation and Community Services Department to the crowd when the agency director, Manuel Carrillo Jr., took the stage to speak.

“At that time, (Cook) booed twice to express his opposition to Carrillo,” the federal complaint reads. “Immediately after (Cook) booed, several officers approached him and told him that he could not speak.”

Cook asserted his First Amendment rights to express his views about a public official and began to walk away from the area. A Baldwin Park lieutenant then grabbed him and officers led him away from the park, telling him he would be arrested if he returned, the complaint said. Cook reasserted his First Amendment rights and, in response, he was arrested. At the jail, Cook was subjected to a strip search by a female officer before being released later that night.

Cook initially filed a claim with the city, but it was denied because the city believed it did not violate his rights, Tafoya said in the statement.

“We strongly believe the arrests were proper,” Tafoya said, adding that it wasn’t just “one or two comments.” “He was making threats.”

In addition to attorney’s fees and damages, the lawsuit sought a declaration that Cook’s rights were violated, as well as an injunction on cross gender strip searches.

“I was strip searched by a woman. I don’t know if their policy reflected it, but we certainly don’t want that to happen to people who are detained,” Cook said.

Tafoya said in the statement the city would not be changing its strip search policies and its current protocols comply with state law.

“If it was important for Mr. Cook to have a Court or a jury say his rights were violated, he should have taken his case to court and tried to prove it,” Tafoya wrote. “Instead, he decided to take a money payout from the City.”