Baltimore’s spending panel agreed Wednesday to pay a man $60,000 for a 2014 encounter with a city police officer that he said left him with neck and back injuries.

Albert Smith alleged that Officer Paul Thompson grabbed him, ordered him to spit out a substance — he contends it was chewing gum — and choked him before arresting him on Oct. 21, 2014, in the Brooklyn neighborhood, according a settlement summary provided to the city Board of Estimates. The board approved the payout without discussion.

Thompson contended that he was working with other officers in an unmarked vehicle near Patapsco Avenue and St. Margaret Street when they saw Smith make “what they believed to be an exchange” with an individual “known to him to be a drug dealer,” the board memo said.

The officers then pulled up near Smith, asked him what he received in the exchange and “observed him place a white substance in his mouth.”

The officers got out of the vehicle, and Smith said Thompson began choking him until the gum came out of his mouth.

Thompson said Smith refused to spit out the substance and he placed him under arrest along with the suspected drug dealer without a struggle.

Smith and the other person were taken to the Southern District police station for booking.

The board memo said Smith was later diagnosed with a traumatic fracture of a neck bone and sprain to a neck muscle. He also had back pain and bruising to his neck.

Smith sued the city for assault, battery, false arrest and false imprisonment.

It’s not known whether the Police Department disciplined Thompson for the incident. In Maryland, such internal affairs records are protected from public disclosure.

“Because of conflicting factual issues and objective injuries suffered by Plaintiff, the parties propose to settle the matter,” the memo said.

—?Yvonne Wenger