Investigations
Chicago Taxpayers Have Already Paid $1.1M to Fight Lawsuit Filed by Family of Adam Toledo as Trial Approaches
A mural of Adam Toledo painted by Milton Coronado. (Matt Masterson / WTTW News)
Chicago taxpayers have already paid more than $1.1 million to fight a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old shot and killed by a Chicago police officer after a brief foot chase in March 2021, according to documents obtained by WTTW News.
Three and a half years after Adam’s death spurred demonstrations and renewed calls for police reform, the lawsuit filed by his parents is set to go to trial Nov. 6, ramping up the pressure on lawyers for the city to negotiate a settlement in the high-profile case or face the possibility of a trial that could lead to a multimillion-dollar jury verdict.
In all, taxpayers paid two law firms — Johnson & Bell and Nathan & Kamionski — $1.1 million between June 2022 and July 2024, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through the Freedom of Information Act.
A spokesperson for Chicago Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry said city lawyers “attempted in good faith to reach a resolution with the parties through mediation but we were ultimately unable to reach a mutually agreeable settlement.”
However, city officials did not respond to questions from WTTW News about the decision to use taxpayers’ funds to pay a premium to private attorneys to defend the conduct of Officer Eric Stillman, who is facing termination by the Chicago Police Board.
Joel Hirschhorn, the lawyer for the Toledos, told WTTW News the city should settle the case.
“A trial will reopen raw wounds,” Hirschhorn said, while a settlement will help bring closure to Adam’s parents, who “hurt every day.”
Chicago taxpayers frequently pay a premium to hire private lawyers to defend police officers in complicated lawsuits that allege they violated the civil rights of Chicagoans, rather than assigning staff attorneys on the city’s payroll to defend the officers.
The city’s contracts with the three police unions that represent all CPD members obligate the city to pay to defend lawsuits that allege misconduct.
It is not unusual for high-profile lawsuits alleging serious police misconduct to settle on the eve of trial. Any settlement of more than $100,000 would have to be approved by the Chicago City Council.
The eventual resolution of the lawsuit filed by Elizabeth and Marco Toledo, Adam’s parents, or a trial will refocus attention on the events of the early morning of March 29, 2021, which began when the city’s gunshot detection system detected eight shots near 24th Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village.
Stillman and his partner responded to the alert at 2:36 a.m., and encountered Adam and Ruben Roman, 21.
Stillman detained Roman, and then chased Adam down a nearby alley. Adam was carrying a firearm in his right hand, but began dropping it and put his arms in the air as he turned to face Stillman, alongside a fence in the alley. Stillman fired one shot at the boy, striking him in the chest, according to video captured by the officer’s body-worn camera.
If the case gets to a jury, it will be decided by what those 12 residents of Cook County see in that video, Hirschhorn said.
“The question is what a jury will see in real time when we play that video,” Hirschhorn said. “What matters is real time, not slow motion.”
There’s no question that the 13-year-old should not have been on the streets in the early morning hours with a gun, Hirschhorn said.
“But he complied with the officer’s order,” Hirschhorn said.
Hirschhorn said he plans to argue that CPD was negligent in hiring Stillman in 2015, after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs determined that he suffered from a stress disability as a result of his service in the military before he became a Chicago police officer.
Lawyers for the city failed to convince Judge Kathy M. Flanagan to prohibit Hirschhorn from making that argument to a jury.
Roman was acquitted in November 2022 on charges he fired at parked cars alongside Adam.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx declined to file criminal charges against Stillman in connection with the death of Adam, who never pointed the gun at the officer. Foxx said the entire series of events occurred “within one second.”
Stillman’s belief that he was in danger of imminent harm was reasonable “given the totality of the circumstances surrounding the incident,” Foxx determined.
After a separate investigation, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability urged that Stillman be fired, determining he used excessive force against the 13-year-old. In addition, Stillman’s actions were inconsistent with departmental rules then in effect governing foot chases and he failed to activate his body-worn camera in time to capture the entire incident.
Former Chicago Police Supt. David Brown disagreed with the recommendation from the city’s lead agency charged with investigating police misconduct, known as COPA. Instead, Brown said Stillman should face just a five-day suspension for not properly activating his body-worn camera.
Stillman has not returned to active duty with the CPD since the shooting.
Since Brown and COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten could not reach an agreement on what discipline Stillman should face, it fell to one member of the Chicago Police Board to decide whether to accept Brown’s determination or send the matter to the full board for consideration.
Ghian Foreman, who was then the president of the Police Board, declined in October 2022 to affirm Brown’s decision, putting Stillman’s fate in the hands of the nine-member board made up of mayoral appointees confirmed by the Chicago City Council. Foreman is no longer a member of the board.
But days before the board was to begin considering whether Stillman should be fired in February, a Cook County judge halted the hearing amid a dispute between the city and the city’s largest police union. Those proceedings have yet to resume, leaving Stillman’s case in limbo and Adam’s parents frustrated and angry, Hirschhorn said.
The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, appealed a March ruling by a Cook County judge that established the right of Chicago police officers accused of serious misconduct to ask an arbitrator — and not the Chicago Police Board — to decide their fate, but those proceedings must take place in public.
A state appellate court is expected to rule as soon as this fall in the case. Until then, disciplinary proceedings against 13 officers, including Stillman, who are facing termination or a suspension of at least a year, remain in limbo.
Police union President John Catanzara has fiercely defended Stillman, saying the shooting was “100% justified” and called Stillman “actually heroic.”
Adam’s death forced CPD to accelerate long-stalled efforts to develop a policy governing when officers can chase those suspected of committing crimes. But it would not be until June 2022 that police brass implemented CPD’s first-ever foot chase policy and promised it would protect the safety of officers, the public and those being pursued.
A 2016 probe by the U.S. Department of Justice found that too many police chases in the city were unnecessary or ended with unjustified shootings. That investigation led to the 2019 federal court order that requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers, known as the consent decree. That agreement required CPD to craft and implement a policy telling officers when they are allowed to give chase, a demand that went unfulfilled until after Adam was killed.
The outrage around the 13-year-old’s death was compounded by the fatal police shooting two days later of 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez, which also took place after a foot chase.
Adam’s death also served to amplify criticism that the city’s gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter, contributed to the overpolicing of Black and Latino neighborhoods without making residents any safer.
The city’s contract with SoundThinking, the firm that operates ShotSpotter, is set to end Sept. 22, after Mayor Brandon Johnson canceled it over the vociferous criticism of some West and South side alderpeople. The final day the gunshot detection system will be in use is set for Nov. 22, after a “two-month transition” period.
During the 2023 campaign, Johnson said there was “clear evidence (ShotSpotter) is unreliable and overly susceptible to human error” and blamed the system for Adam’s death.
During his inaugural address, Johnson promised to take a new approach to public safety in Chicago and mourned Adam’s death by mentioning the pain his parents are suffering, while paying tribute to Officer Areanah Preston, who was slain while in uniform just weeks before Johnson took office. Four teens have been charged in connection with her shooting death.
“The tears of Adam Toledo’s parents are made of the same sorrow as those of Officer Preston’s parents,” Johnson said.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | [email protected] | (773) 569-1863
