Pizza Delivery Driver Shot 14 Times by Cops Gets $4.4 Million Settlement

We live in dangerous times.

We don't need to enumerate the perils of the modern age here, because you're here to read about food—presumably to forget about said perils. But while we're on the topic of food, it's only fair to shout out the brave men and women who deliver pizza for a living. Driving around with hot pizzas might sound like a humble, even monotonous job, but that couldn't be further from the reality of the streets.

It's actually one of the most dangerous jobs in America, and the risk is inherent to the occupation. A total stranger summons you to deliver pizza—unaccompanied by any type of security—to an address of their choice, and you then have to handle a bunch of cash at their door.

While there can also be fun aspects of the job—like occasionally getting invited into parties or tipped with weed—many drivers would argue that being a soft target for petty, violent crime is not worth the minute chance of receiving a beer or even a blow job from a customer. All you have to do is Google the words "pizza delivery" to see the almost-weekly news stories of pizza deliverers being brutalised while they sling pies. Sadly, beatings, robberies, and on some occasions, even machete attacks are not uncommon in this line of work. In 2014 alone, 20 pizza delivery drivers were shot while on the job.

Pizza delivery people don't just have to contend with unsavoury criminal types—they also have to deal with trigger-happy cops, like the two Philadelphia officers who repeatedly shot at and injured a black pizza delivery driver during an incident in 2014, hitting him in the head, face, and leg.

According to the Associated Press, now-23-year-old Philippe Holland now suffers from a permanent seizure disorder and chronic pain after the police officers, who were looking for an unrelated gunman, thought he was their suspect.

When the plainclothes officers approached him as he walked to his vehicle, Holland panicked, thinking they were posing as cops to try to steal his car. Holland put his car in reverse and was subsequently shot 14 times. Now, the city of Philadelphia has announced that they will be giving Holland $4.4 million in compensation in the largest police shooting settlement ever in the history of the city.

The officers in question have been relegated to desk jobs for the time being, and prosecutors elected to not file charges against the officers. But, according to city and police officials, this shooting was a wake-up call for law enforcement.

"We will strive to ensure that tragedies such as this do not happen again in our city. The Philadelphia Police Department has agreed under the settlement to implement a new training protocol for all current and new plainclothes police officers," city lawyer Sozi Pedro Tulante said in a press release.

While this story remains unquestionably dark, the fact that an entire police force is changing its practices because of this shooting is a testament to the perils faced by pizza delivery drivers every day.