(WTTW News)
Chicago taxpayers will pay more than $4.5 million to settle three lawsuits claiming Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct.
The Chicago City Council voted to pay $4 million to the family of a man who spent 33 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a woman in 1989 in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
Lee Harris was 36 when he was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to 90 years in prison for murdering 24-year-old Dana Feitler, who was forced to withdraw $400 from an ATM after being kidnapped from the lobby of her apartment building in the city’s most affluent neighborhood.
Eight months after Harris was exonerated in March 2023, he died of natural causes, records show.
In all, Chicago taxpayers have spent $205.8 million since 2019 to resolve 44 lawsuits brought by more than three dozen people wrongfully convicted based on evidence gathered by the Chicago Police Department, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
In a separate case, taxpayers will pay $225,000 to the family of an Indianapolis man shot and killed by two off-duty Chicago police officers in 2016 after he pointed a gun at them during a brawl that exacerbated racial tension in Mount Greenwood.
The agency tasked with investigating misconduct by Chicago police officers ruled the officers were justified in shooting Joshua Beal.
Beal, 25, of Indianapolis, and his family were traveling along 111th Street on Nov. 5, 2016, as part of a funeral procession through a part of the city’s Far Southwest Side home to many Chicago firefighters, police officers and city workers. More than 80% of Mount Greenwood’s residents are White.
Beal and his family, who are Black, had just buried their cousin, when they got into an altercation with Chicago Police Officer Joseph Treacy near the entrance to Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery. The lawyer representing Beal’s fiancee and their two children in the lawsuit against the city claimed the melee began when Treacy used a racial epithet to refer to members of Beal’s family.
Witnesses said they saw a Black man punch a White man before the procession stopped in front of the fire station at 111th and Troy streets. Ryne Kinsella, an off-duty Chicago Fire Department recruit, told Beal and his relatives to move their cars, using racial epithets, according to the lawsuit.
Members of the procession that included Beal attacked Kinsella, prompting Treacy to come to Kinsella’s aid with his gun drawn and announce that he was a Chicago police officer. Sgt. Thomas Derouin encountered the brawl on his way to work and stopped to assist Kinsella and Treacy.
Minutes after Derouin arrived on the scene, Beal retrieved his own gun from inside his car and pointed it at the officers, according to the investigation conducted by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA.
Treacy and Derouin opened fire, killing Beal. Kinsella provided medical aid to Beal after he was shot, according to video from the scene.
In a separate case, taxpayers will pay $325,000 to Wenmin Chen, who was shot and wounded by a Chicago police officer in March 2018 while suffering a mental health crisis.
COPA concluded Officer David Perez was justified in shooting Chen, records show.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
