We identified 12 publicly reported settlements that resulted in policy changes and $329,435,000.00 in monetary compensation to victims.

Data last updated July 17, 2023.

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Settlements
Location Year Description Outcome
Chicago, Illinois 2022

Daniel Taylor will receive $14.25 million after he was arrested and wrongfully convicted over 20 years ago, due to Chicago Police Department (CPD) misconduct.

Taylor was 17 when he was arrested and wrongfully convicted in 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. Taylor’s attorneys believe that CPD officers hid evidence which would have exonerated him. Taylor spent 21 years in prison before he was released in 2013 after his conviction was overturned.

Compensation
$14,250,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2022

In 2020, Esael Morales filed a lawsuit against Chicago police, claiming that he was framed by Officer Joseph Cabrera. The case was settled for $200,000.

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 and then began to follow them and yelled at them to leave. They did not, and instead circled the block to find Cabrera still following them. Morales got out of the car and went to speak to Cabrera, but Cabrera placed Morales into a chokehold, punched him, and fired his pistol . Cabrera later told a 911 dispatcher that Morales attacked him and knocked him to the ground, but an eyewitness disputed account. The case was settled for $200,000 and was paid for by the City Council’s Finance Committee.

Compensation
$200,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2022

In 2017, Darrin Johnson was run over by an unmarked SUV driven by Officer Ronald Ayala. Johnson sued for negligence, and the case was settled for $400,000.

Johnson claims that Officer Ronald Ayala was speeding and/or failed to keep a lookout for pedestrians and fractured both of Johnson’s knees after running him over. Ayala claimed that this was because he, along with his partner, had been following another SUV that had been 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 SUV. Neither the police car nor the officers had camera equipment. The City Council’s Finance Committee authorized a settlement of $400,000.

Compensation
$400,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2021

In December 2021, the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee unanimously voted to pay $2.9 million dollars to Anjanette Young, a Black woman whose home was wrongfully raided in February 2019.

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.

Policy changes
Compensation
$2,900,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2018 - 2021

The Chicago City Council agreed to pay $3 million in settlements for various lawsuits alleging misconduct by which accused Chicago Police officers of misconduct.

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.

Compensation
$3,000,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2021

Chicago Aldermen settled a lawsuit brought by a Chicago man, Antwon Golatte, who was shot by police officers Jamie Gaeta and Harry Matheos during a traffic stop in February 2015. Officials later determined that the stop was unjustified.

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.

Compensation
$570,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2021

In January 2021, the City of Chicago paid two Chicago men a settlement totaling $115,000 for being subjected to excessive force by Chicago law enforcement officers during the George Floyd protests.

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.”

Compensation
$115,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2020

Dnigma Howard, a 16-year-old Black female special needs student at Marshall High School, will receive $300,000 to settle a lawsuit concerning excessive police force at a Chicago Public School. In January 2019, Howard was tased and wrestled down a flight of stairs by school resource officers.

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.

Compensation
$300,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2020

Officer Lauren Kubiack was transferred to an undesirable patrol assignment after reporting that she had been threatened by one of her coworkers in 2012. She will receive $3.8 million dollars to settle the lawsuit. The settlement will also enact new policy changes for the Chicago Police Department.

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.

Compensation
$3,800,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2020

Chicago Aldermen in September 2020 agreed to settle four lawsuits concerning police misconduct for $6.65 million.

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.

Compensation
$6,650,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2020

In 2017, Ricardo Hayes, who was 18 years old at the time, was shot by an off-duty Chicago police officer. He will now receive $2.25 million dollars to settle the lawsuit.

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.

Compensation
$2,250,000.00
Chicago, Illinois 2010 - 2018

Between 2010 and 2014, Chicago spent $249.7 million on police misconduct cases; in the first part of 2018, it spent over $45 million on police misconduct settlements.

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.

Compensation
$295,000,000.00