Forest Hills officials have had second thoughts about going after part of a former police officer's multimillion dollar settlement with Second Chance Body Armor Inc.

On Tuesday, council voted, 6-0 with Michael Mrazik absent, to drop a motion that it seek to have $750,000 of Officer Edward Limbacher's settlement from the Michigan-based vest manufacturer paid to the borough to compensate for wages paid to him.

Officer Limbacher was seriously wounded and permanently disabled during a 2003 drug investigation.

"It's the right thing to do," council President Mike Belmonte said.

The decision came after members of the Public Safety Committee, Celeste Liscio, Michael Mrazik and Bill Tomasic, discussed the matter at the committee's regular meeting Thursday.

They agreed to ask fellow council members to drop an attempt to collect part of the officer's settlement, the total of which is undisclosed but thought to be more than $3 million.

Mr. Limbacher, a five-year veteran of the Forest Hills police, was shot in the stomach June 23, 2003, while working as a member of the state attorney general's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

The bullet pierced his Second Chance Ultima vest and remains lodged in his stomach.

Mr. Limbacher, who was 33 at the time of the shooting, receives his full salary from the borough's pension fund.

Mr. Belmonte said that, under an agreement with Mr. Limbacher, Forest Hills will receive $43,000 from the settlement to cover the wages he was paid before he was declared permanently disabled.

Henry Weihagen, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 91, which represents all police departments in Allegheny County except the city of Pittsburgh, said council did "the moral thing" in dropping its claim.

"[The settlement] may seem like a large amount, but this individual will be on a fixed income for the rest of his life," Mr. Weihagen said, adding that he knew of no other attempt by a municipality to collect from a police officer's damage settlement.

Mr. Weihagen said the union would consider reworking its next contract "to make sure this [situation] doesn't happen again in the future."

Forest Hills now must decide how to strengthen its police pension fund, which has incurred costs in excess of $1 million, partly as a result of payments to Mr. Limbacher and two other permanently disabled officers. They collect 100 percent of their salaries, and borough officials said that jeopardizes the future soundness of the pension plan.

Mr. Belmonte wants council to consider filing suit against Second Chance and, if that is unsuccessful, discuss a tax increase or mandatory contribution to the pension plan by police officers.