Crime & Law
After Charges Dropped, Chicago Woman Accused in Fatal Restaurant Shooting Files Lawsuit Against City, Police
A mother who was accused of ordering her son to kill a man inside a West Pullman restaurant is suing the city of Chicago and the police officers who arrested her, a day after prosecutors dropped murder charges against her.
Attorneys for 35-year-old Carlishia Hood announced the lawsuit Tuesday morning, claiming the arrest of Hood and her son was an “obvious rush to judgment” by police following the fatal June 18 shooting.
“We do not take what happened to Ms. Hood lightly,” attorney Brandon Brown said during a press conference Tuesday morning. “You don’t have to be a lawyer to appreciate and recognize that when a woman is violently attacked by a man — an unarmed woman — that she wouldn't be arrested.”
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Cook County circuit court, accuses the city and five police officers of malicious prosecution, false arrest and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Brown also said he plans to file additional lawsuits.
Hood and her 14-year-old son were each charged last week with the murder of 32-year-old Jeremy Brown following an altercation at the Maxwell Street Express restaurant in the 11600 block of South Halsted Street.
Hood and Jeremy Brown got into a verbal altercation inside the restaurant at around 11 p.m. before he began punching Hood in the head. Prosecutors said at that point, Hood’s son produced a firearm and shot Brown in the back before chasing him out of the restaurant and shooting him a second time.
While prosecutors acknowledged during a bond hearing last week that Jeremy Brown had punched Hood, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office ultimately determined Monday it was “unable to meet our burden of proof in the prosecution of these cases” and dropped all charges against Hood and her son.
Hood and her attorneys on Tuesday thanked Foxx and her office for “rightfully” dismissing the charges.
“I’ve experienced pain in many ways, many ways, that I would have never have thought,” Hood said. “What happened to me was totally unnecessary. Never in a million years would I have imagined being brutally attacked, beaten and then arrested.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department on Tuesday said it “will review the lawsuit upon service and does not comment on pending litigation.”
The dismissal came after a video of a portion of the confrontation inside the restaurant was widely shared on social media. The video does not show the shooting, but does appear to show Brown punching Hood.
In the eight-page lawsuit, Hood’s attorneys contend that, as a result of her arrest, she suffered “the value of her lost liberty, exposure to public scandal and disgrace, damage to her reputation, mental and emotional suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, and anguish.”
Hood’s attorneys argued in the complaint that the officers knew she had been “a victim of a criminal unlawful brutal attack” and that “there was no legal or legitimate basis” to believe Hood had committed a first-degree murder.
“In fact, the surveillance videos completely exculpated Carlishia Hood,” her attorneys said in the complaint.
This is a developing story.
Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected] | (773) 509-5431
