Crime & Law
With Latest Settlement, Taxpayers Spent $8.7M to Settle, Defend Lawsuits Accusing CPD Officers of Misconduct During Protests, Unrest in 2020
Miracle Boyd (Good Kids Mad City)
Chicago taxpayers have spent nearly $8.7 million to defend and settle lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct during the protests and unrest during the summer of 2020 that were triggered by the police murder of George Floyd, according to an analysis by WTTW News.
The Chicago City Council voted 34-15 Wednesday to pay $280,000 to activist Miracle Boyd, who was struck by a Chicago police officer during a protest in Grant Park near the Christopher Columbus statue in July 2020.
Boyd was an 18-year-old activist with the group Good Kids Mad City and planning to attend DePaul University during the summer of 2020.
While protesting the presence of the Columbus statue in Grant Park, Boyd was filming an arrest when an officer knocked her phone out of her hand, sending it into her face and knocking out one and a half teeth. The pictures of a bloody Boyd went viral, adding to the outrage over the way CPD officers responded to the protests.
Before the settlement was considered by the City Council’s Finance Committee, Boyd told alderpeople the incident derailed her life.
“I remember it like yesterday, because for some reason I can’t get over the harm that was caused to me,” Boyd said. “There is no reason why that officer should have done that, because it was already decided that I deserved this.”
In addition to the loss of her front tooth, Boyd said she suffered nerve damage and pain — even after she underwent reconstructive dental surgery — and had to drop out of DePaul University, where she had a scholarship.
Then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered the Columbus statue removed shortly after the protest, and it remains in storage.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the agency charged with investigating police misconduct, concluded the officer used excessive force against Boyd, tried to prevent her from recording police and made false, misleading or incomplete statements in his report of the incident. The officer resigned after COPA urged the superintendent to fire him.
More than $3 million of the $8.7 million went to pay private lawyers to defend the conduct of CPD officers from late May until mid-August 2020, one of the most tumultuous periods in Chicago history, according to records obtained by WTTW News through multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
The city’s inspector general concluded that CPD brass and officers botched nearly every aspect of the department’s response to the protests and unrest. The independent monitoring team charged with enforcing the federal court order requiring CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers found the department was “unprepared for the level of sustained protests and unrest downtown and throughout its neighborhoods.”
Chicago taxpayers paid a premium to hire private attorneys to defend the conduct of CPD officers even though two probes found officers beat protesters with batons, doused their faces with pepper spray, used racial slurs and mocked the push for racial justice and police reform. In many cases, that conduct violated protesters’ First Amendment rights and involved unjustified and excessive force, according to the probes.
In addition to the cost of outside attorneys, Chicago taxpayers spent more than $5.6 million to settle 44 lawsuits identified by WTTW News that were filed by Chicagoans who said they were the victims of misconduct by CPD officers during the protests and unrest.
However, just six of those lawsuits were settled by a vote of the Chicago City Council because they called for payments of more than $100,000.
The largest payment — $1.62 million — went to five people who were pulled from their car by seven Chicago police officers and beaten outside the Brickyard Mall. The remaining lawsuits were settled with the approval of Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry, the city’s top lawyer.
The 38 lawsuits identified by WTTW News that were resolved without City Council approval were resolved with an average payment of $55,400. In 16 of those cases, Chicago hired outside lawyers to defend CPD, costing taxpayers an average of $57,300 per case, according to records obtained by WTTW News.
The cost to Chicago taxpayers of police misconduct during the protests that erupted during the summer of 2020 is sure to grow with at least 13 cases pending in federal court, records show. Another case appears to have been settled, but it is not clear how much taxpayers will pay in that case.
The lawsuits settled by the city alleged officers repeatedly used excessive force at protests that erupted across the city throughout the summer of 2020 — in the shadow of Trump Tower and at the Brickyard Mall on May 30; in River North on May 31; in Uptown on June 1; in Grant Park on July 17 and on the Wacker Avenue bridge over the Chicago River on Aug. 15, according to court records.
WTTW News’ analysis was prompted by the fact that the Law Department does not systematically track why lawsuits are filed against the city, complicating efforts by the City Council, the news media and outside groups to track the cost of CPD’s botched response to the protests and unrest and repeated use of excessive force against protesters.
Chicago’s Law Department routinely hires outside law firms to defend the CPD in complicated, complex lawsuits alleging officers committed serious misconduct in the hopes of reducing the cost to taxpayers if a settlement is reached, officials said. In the rare cases that go to trial, private lawyers can often wage a more aggressive defense of CPD’s conduct than members of the city’s Law Department, which has suffered from staffing shortages for more than a decade.
That expertise comes at a significant premium, costing Chicago taxpayers four to five times more than in-house lawyers, according to estimates offered during City Council budget hearings where these costs are a perennial sticking point for budget-conscious alderpeople.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
