Man in prison for shooting toddler nears settlement with metro-east cop he says beat him up

A man who is serving a 182-year prison sentence for his role in a shooting that left a boy paralyzed is close to settling his federal lawsuit alleging he was beaten by an East St. Louis police officer during a prior arrest.

De’Angelo Higgs, 38, is serving the sentence in the shooting that injured Mason Mitchell, who was 3 years old on September 2021, when he was shot in East St. Louis.

Higgs filed a hand-written lawsuit in 2020 against Leland Cherry Jr., who was an East St. Louis police officer at the time but has since resigned. Higgs alleges Cherry punched him over 50 times on his face and head during a separate arrest on Oct. 18, 2020, and that his injuries included a “severe” concussion, broken nose and fractured eye socket.

Cherry, who resigned from the East St. Louis Police Department in August 2023, denied Higgs’ allegations, according to court papers filed by his attorneys in an answer to Higgs’ complaint.

On Sept. 30, a federal magistrate posted an order noting that attorneys for Higgs and Cherry have settled the lawsuit and gave them 60 days to finalize the terms.

Federal court records do not include a copy of the settlement.

Aaron Sherman, one of the two St. Louis attorneys from the Fox Smith law firm appointed by the federal court to represent Higgs, declined to comment on details of the settlement. Thomas Smith was the other attorney representing Higgs.

The two attorneys representing Cherry, Grey Chatham and Al Paulson of Belleville, could not be reached for comment.

Cherry, 36, also could not be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, Cherry received a 24-month probation sentence in connection with charges filed after police said a Washington Park officer was assaulted and threats were made against another officer on April 20, 2022, at a Washington Park nightclub.

The felony charges filed in the case were dropped in exchange for Cherry’s guilty plea to two misdemeanor charges of aggravated assault, according to St. Clair County court records.

Higgs, meanwhile, remains in the Menard Correctional Center. The state Department of Corrections lists his projected parole date as May 27, 2176.

Higgs was convicted in 2022 on seven counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, and possession of a weapon by a felon in connection with the shooting that injured Mason, who is now 6.

Mason was struck by the spray of gunfire while seated in his mother’s car outside East Side Meat Market near the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Sixth Street in East St. Louis. His mother, Marquisha Collins, had stopped there after work to pick up a quick, hot dinner for her children.

Two other men also were charged in connection with this shooting.

As far as the charges related to Higgs’ arrest by Cherry on Oct. 18, 2020, court records show the case involving the robbery of a backpack from a woman was dropped by prosecutors after Higgs was given the 182-year sentence for the shooting that paralyzed Mason.