SW News: Call it a victory of sorts for a pro-life supporting police officer. On Thursday, the US city of Louisville went for an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit by compensating the plaintiff, Matt Schrenger with $75,000.

Matt had filed a lawsuit against the state and the police department last October after he was suspended with pay for four months for praying in front of an abortion facility. The veteran officer with 13 years of service was stripped of his police powers and placed under investigation after he prayed with his father in front of the EMW Women’s Surgical Center that is one of the main licensed abortion-providing facilities in Kentucky on February 20 last year. He went to pray there while he was off duty.

In October that year, Matt filed a lawsuit in Western District Court and argued that off-duty prayer took place at 6 am before the clinic was open. He also cited how his constitutional and civil rights were violated. According to Matt Heffron, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, which is a public interest law company that represented the officer, the out-of-court settlement shows that the city knows it committed a serious violation of the constitutional rights of a police officer.

Heffron said that Matt was discriminated against for his pro-life views and it is a violation of the First Amendment rights. Instead of penalizing officers who publicly took part in LGBT and Black Lives Matter protests, the authorities targeted Matt for his personal views, said his lawyer.

In his complaint, the officer said that he was denied access to his office computer, barred from patrol duty and suspended the same morning. His silent prayer outside the abortion clinic was widely noticed after clinic escorts affiliated with EMW uploaded pictures of the officer praying on Twitter.