Chicago, Illinois

On October 4, 2021, Craig called 911 for help, stating his wife was threatening him with a knife. When officers entered the home, Craig’s son told them that his mother had the knife. Although Officer Alberto Covarrubias and his partner had allegedly been informed at least four times that Craig was the victim of domestic violence, Covarrubias shot Craig twice and did not attempt to subdue the wife.

Hood and Washington sued the City in 2016, alleging that Chicago Police detectives fabricated evidence and coerced testimony. Under the settlement, Hood, who spent twenty-two years in prison, received $17.5 million, while Washington, who served twelve years, received $7.5 million. The City’s insurance covered $5 million of the settlement amount. The large settlement came amid ongoing tensions about the financial and social costs of police-related lawsuits in Chicago, where the City approved $220 million in police settlements between January 2021 and September 2023. Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged the cost but emphasized the importance of constitutional policing and correcting past injustices.

City taxpayers paid $710 million total between May 2011 and May 2023 to resolve more than 2,500 cases. As of July 2023, the Chicago City Council was debating how to address concerns about the escalating costs of resolving police misconduct lawsuits.

The settlement came amid growing concerns over the financial and social costs of police misconduct in Chicago. The Chicago City Council on July 19, 2023, narrowly rejected a proposed $2 million settlement with the family of Darius Cole-Garrit, a twenty-one-year-old man fatally shot by police in 2014 after allegedly pointing a gun at officers. Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority had previously found the shooting justified.

The settlement came amid growing concerns over the financial and social costs of police misconduct in Chicago.

The settlement came amid growing concerns over the financial and social costs of police misconduct in Chicago.

A judge overturned his conviction and he was released in 2017, prompting Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to drop the charges against him. Brown received a certificate of innocence the next year. Brown alleged that he confessed to setting the fire after a detective choked him and chained him to a wall for five hours, but prosecutors presented no evidence in court to bolster this confession. Brown also sued Cook County, alleging that he was convicted, in part, because prosecutors lied to the jury.

Officer Joseph Lisciandrello shot and killed Brown, age twenty-six, during a May 2019 foot chase after officers stopped Brown. The City Council approved the settlement because Lisciandrello turned off his body-worn camera before firing nine times at Brown, killing him.

Habasek-Bonelli was unarmed when Simonetti confronted him outside his home in August 2021. Following the confrontation, Habasek-Bonelli was hospitalized and treated for trauma to his head and face, including a nasal fracture and lacerations that required stitches. Simonetti was stripped of his police powers after being charged with felony battery and official misconduct, and his criminal case was ongoing as of June 2023.

In January 2017, police chased Rowlett while he fled from a traffic stop and hit multiple cars and a police cruiser. Police shot Rowlett after they issued contradictory orders regarding whether he should get out of the car, and he became tangled in his seatbelt. Rowlett’s lawsuit said he was unarmed during the incident, although he had a knife in the car. The officer who shot Rowlett resigned from the Chicago Police Department.

Francisco-Martinez was in her vehicle in June 2020 when a police cruiser driven by Chicago Police Officer Juan Blanco hit her at ninety-eight miles per hour. Blanco, who claimed he was in an active pursuit, had failed to follow orders from the Police Department to terminate the pursuit before the collision occurred. The settlement with Francisco-Martinez’s family marked the third large settlement in 2022 related to an individual killed during a police pursuit in Chicago. The Chicago Police Department changed its policy for vehicular pursuits in August 2020, mandating that marked police cars with lights and sirens activated must take the lead and that officers must consider “the requirement to protect the public from the danger created by eluding offenders” while in pursuit.

Prince confessed to the 1991 shooting death of Edward Porter after Chicago Police Detective Kriston Kato physically assaulted Prince while he was handcuffed to a wall. Kato, who was accused of routinely framing people suspected of crimes, retired from the Chicago Police Department in 2006. Prince was granted a new trial in 2017, where his charges were dismissed after four witnesses said they saw another man shoot Porter.

On May 31, 2020, Mia Wright, Tnika Tate, Kim Woods, Ebony Wilbourn, and Javon Hill went to a mall to shop for party supplies and baby items, when officers accused them of attempting to loot a sporting goods store. Officer David Laskus falsely claimed that he saw someone with a hammer attempt to break a store window and then get back in the car with Wright and the others, even though surveillance video showed otherwise. When the group started to drive away at the direction of other officers, police used their batons to smash the car’s windows and demanded that everyone get out of the vehicle. Laskus pulled Wright out of the car by her hair and kneeled on her back and neck. Officer Patrick Dwyer, who retired in July 2020, used racist and sexist language during the incident. The City Council agreed in March 2022 to settle the lawsuit with payments totaling $1.625 million to the five individuals in the car.

Taylor was seventeen when he was arrested and wrongfully convicted of a 1992 double murder. He said he was coerced into confessing to crimes he did not commit. At the time of the killings, Taylor was already in police custody after being arrested for causing a disturbance. His attorneys said police officers hid that evidence, which would have exonerated him. Taylor spent more than twenty years in prison before he was released in 2013 after his conviction was overturned.

Morales and his girlfriend were in a car on South Monitor Street when Cabrera—who was off duty and not in uniform—asked them if they needed help. The couple refused, and instead circled the block to find Cabrera still following them. Cabrera then yelled at them to leave. Morales got out of the car and went to speak to Cabrera, but Cabrera placed Morales in a chokehold, punched him, and fired his pistol at Morales. Cabrera later told a 911 dispatcher that Morales attacked him and knocked him to the ground, but an eyewitness disputed this account. Cabrera was charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggregated discharge of a firearm, false reporting, and obstruction. He was stripped of police powers and later resigned from the force.

Johnson claimed that Ayala was speeding and failed to keep a lookout for pedestrians, and he fractured both of Johnson’s knees after running him over. Ayala claimed that this was because he and his partner had been following another SUV that was driving recklessly with no headlights on. However, Deputy Corporation Counsel Mimi Ruether said that Ayala’s crash report did not include any accounts of the other SUV. Neither the police car nor the officers had camera equipment.

Batchelor and Bailey were convicted during the “Burge torture era,” named for the violent practices used under disgraced Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge to coerce individuals into confessing to crimes they often had not committed. After a review of the case, both men were exonerated in 2018. In January 2022, the City of Chicago agreed to pay each man $7 million to compensate them for the wrongful convictions.

In February 2019, 13 Chicago police officers, who were acting on a bad tip that a man with an illegal firearm lived in Young’s home, raided her house, and handcuffed her while she was getting ready for bed, forcing her to stand naked while they searched her home. Following the incident, Young filed a lawsuit against the city and the officers for failing to independently verify the place to be searched and for wrongfully entering her home. Young’s attorney agreed to settle the case for $2.9 million and, amid the uproar of the case, new raid policies were implemented requiring a department member who is at the rank of lieutenant or higher to be present, as well as a female department member when warrants are being served.

One case involved a high-speed police chase that led to a women’s death in 2018. Another resulted in a $175,000 payment to Lavelle Taylor, who accused Chicago Police Detective James O’Brien of framing him for a 1996 murder that was actually committed by Taylor’s brother.

Golatte will be compensated by the city by paying him $525,000 and forgiving approximately $45,000 in debt he owes to the city.

In February 2018, the Chicago Police Board took a vote to suspend Gaeta and Matheos without pay for a year each. The then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson and the Independent Police Review Authority recommended that both officers be fired. The two officers were reinstated in July 2018 and were re-trained. Both officers remain on the force.

One of the men, Ian Andrew Bowman, who received $75,000, said in his lawsuit that officers beat, kicked, choked, clubbed, and stomped on him without legal justification. The second man, Jonathan Ballew, a freelance journalist whose claim was settled for $40,000, alleged that he was “assaulted with a chemical agent.”

After receiving a suspension, officers alleged that Howard refused to leave the school premises. Howard was also charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses, but those charges were dropped by the state’s attorney’s office a week after the incident.

Kubiack’s case raises the “code-of-silence" that discourages officers across the country from reporting problems within their departments. The officer who threatened Kubiack has had 31 internal affairs complaints as well as a federal lawsuit leveled against him. Kubiack initially filed an administrative complaint requesting to be placed back in her assignment with Chicago Police Department’s News Affairs, but her request was denied.

Two of the lawsuits concerned fatal police shootings of two Black men: Paul O’Neal Jr., who was 18 at the time, and Martice Milliner, who was 27, were both shot and killed by Chicago police officers. Chicago also settled a separate lawsuit concerning a claim of retaliation arising out of a report by one police officer against another officer for verbal abuse and threatening conduct and another settlement involved a claim about armed officers breaking into an apartment based on an inaccurate warrant.

Hayes has developmental disabilities and was unarmed at the time of his shooting. It is unclear why he was targeted by an off-duty police officer, but the incident was caught on video and the officer involved in the incident was suspended for six months.

In 2015, The Wall Street Journal released an analysis of settlement totals from instances of police misconduct among the ten largest local police departments in the nation. Many of the cases involved in the analysis involved alleged beatings, shootings, and wrongful imprisonment. The analysis determined that, between 2010 and 2014, the City of Chicago spent $249.7 million on police misconduct cases. In 2015, the city paid $5 million to the family of Laquan McDonald, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer 16 times as he walked away from the officer. A separate analysis conducted by local news source NBC5 Chicago determined that the city paid over $45 million to resolve police misconduct cases between January and July 2018.