CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Twan and Lauren Reynolds, who were assaulted and beaten by then-Montgomery police officer Matthew Leavitt, have settled their lawsuit with the city for $500,000, said Mike Clifford, their lawyer.

"I feel relieved by it," said Twan Reynolds. "The main objective was earlier [Leavitt's criminal trial], when justice prevailed on it. ... I didn't know what would come of this but I felt like it was fair."

On Sept. 26, 2008, Leavitt stopped the Reynoldses' vehicle as it was leaving a 7-Eleven parking lot.

There, Leavitt and Officer Shawn Hutchinson pulled Lauren Reynolds from the car, telling her it sounded like she was slurring her words. They looked at her license, which had a St. Albans address.

"They said, 'You're a little St. Albans girl. You haven't had the privilege of being introduced to the Montgomery police yet,'" Lauren Reynolds said.

Twan Reynolds started talking to the two officers as he also tried to calm his daughter, who also was in the vehicle.

Leavitt and Hutchinson pulled Twan Reynolds out of his car and tried to handcuff him. When Reynolds told the men he hadn't done anything that justified arrest, Leavitt pulled out a slapjack - a small weapon with a weight at the end - and hit him in the face with it, according to Montgomery Police Lt. J.D. Burrow.

In December, Burrow told the Gazette that Leavitt and Hutchinson threatened to arrest him when he tried to stop them from attacking Reynolds.

"I feel relieved by it," said Twan Reynolds. "The main objective was earlier [Leavitt's criminal trial], when justice prevailed on it. ... I didn't know what would come of this but I felt like it was fair."

On Sept. 26, 2008, Leavitt stopped the Reynoldses' vehicle as it was leaving a 7-Eleven parking lot.

There, Leavitt and Officer Shawn Hutchinson pulled Lauren Reynolds from the car, telling her it sounded like she was slurring her words. They looked at her license, which had a St. Albans address.

"They said, 'You're a little St. Albans girl. You haven't had the privilege of being introduced to the Montgomery police yet,'" Lauren Reynolds said.

Twan Reynolds started talking to the two officers as he also tried to calm his daughter, who also was in the vehicle.

Leavitt and Hutchinson pulled Twan Reynolds out of his car and tried to handcuff him. When Reynolds told the men he hadn't done anything that justified arrest, Leavitt pulled out a slapjack - a small weapon with a weight at the end - and hit him in the face with it, according to Montgomery Police Lt. J.D. Burrow.

In December, Burrow told the Gazette that Leavitt and Hutchinson threatened to arrest him when he tried to stop them from attacking Reynolds.

"These guys were on their own. They felt like they could do what they want," Burrow said at the time.

Twan Reynolds remembers Leavitt and Hutchinson, who'd been employed as an officer in Chesapeake since April, yelling racial slurs at him. Twan Reynolds is black and his wife is white.

When Twan and Lauren Reynolds were arrested, their daughter, Kaleigha, was left in their car. An acquaintance took Kaleigha, but her parents didn't know what had happened to her while they were under arrest.

On Oct. 22, Leavitt was sentenced to two years in prison for the incident for violating the Reynolds' civil rights. He pleaded guilty to two federal misdemeanors, acknowledging that he wrongly arrested Lauren Reynolds for DUI and that he beat her husband with a slapjack.

Clifford said $75,000 from the settlement will go into a fund for Kaleigha Reynolds.

While the settlement does not include an admission of guilt, Clifford said, "Its size is sufficient to put everyone in the town of Montgomery on notice that what happened there was wrong. That was the whole focus of this."

Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.