Politics
Key City Panel Rejects Proposal to Pay $8.3M to Family of Woman Struck, Killed by Driver Being Chased by Police
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
A key City Council panel voted 15-18 to reject a proposal to pay $8.3 million to the family of a woman who was struck and killed by a driver being chased by Chicago police.
Dominga Flores Gomez, 55, died in the crash that ended the chase launched by two Chicago Police Department vehicles just before 9 p.m. Sept. 28, 2022, in McKinley Park, records show.
Police were pursuing a Honda HR-V that had been carjacked when the crash occurred, according to the lawsuit filed by Flores Gomez’s family, which includes her five children and eight grandchildren, according to an online obituary.
The pursuit lasted for 11 miles and reached speeds of up to 95 mph in an area of the city where the speed limit is 30 mph. Officer Tobias Houston, who led the pursuit, “ran 20 red lights and several stop signs,” Deputy Corporation Counsel Maggie Mendenhall Casey said.
The rejection of the proposed settlement by the City Council’s Finance Committee means the lawsuit filed by Flores Gomez’s family in Cook County Circuit Court is likely to head to trial.
At that trial, the jury will hear that Houston has been suspended three times for a total of six days for engaging in pursuits that violated Chicago Police Department policy. One of those pursuits, which ended in a chain-reaction crash involving five cars, occurred just 10 days before Flores Gomez was killed, Mendenhall Casey said.
Houston is named in three pending lawsuits, including the lawsuit filed by Flores Gomez’s family, triggered by those pursuits, Mendenhall Casey said.
Houston did not respond to a request for comment from WTTW News. Houston, who earns more than $111,200 annually, remains an active member of CPD assigned to the Deering (9th) Police District, according to city records and a department spokesperson.
The lawsuit filed by Flores Gomez’s family also names Juan C. Vazquez, the driver of the stolen car that crashed into her car at Kedzie Avenue and 31st Street and killed her. Vazquez, who was convicted of reckless homicide, remains in prison, Mendenhall Casey said.
Vazquez has no assets that could be used to compensate Flores Gomez’s family for her death, Mendenhall Casey said.
Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward), who frequently votes against settling lawsuits alleging police misconduct, said the fault for Flores Gomez’s death lies entirely with Vazquez.
Lopez said officers were entirely justified in attempting to apprehend him after he used force to carjack a vehicle.
More than three years after Flores Gomez was killed, the pursuit is still under investigation by CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs, according to a CPD spokesperson.
A federal court order requires internal affairs complaints to be resolved in six months.
CPD changed its vehicle pursuit policy in 2020 and then again in 2022 — before Flores Gomez was killed — to require officers to “consider the need for immediate apprehension of an eluding suspect and the requirement to protect the public from the danger created by eluding offenders.”
Mendenhall Casey told committee members that attorneys for Flores Gomez’s family will likely argue that Houston, and those officers supervising the pursuit, allowed it to reach excessive speeds and last for too long to comply with that balancing test.
In addition, Houston led the entire pursuit while driving an unmarked police vehicle, even though CPD’s policy calls for a squad car — with lights and sirens — to replace an unmarked car during a pursuit as soon as possible, Mendenhall Casey said. There is no evidence that CPD officials complied with that provision of the policy.
In December 2024, a Cook County jury ordered the city to pay $79.85 million to the family of Da’Karia Spicer, who was killed in a crash on Sept. 2, 2020, that ended a police pursuit.
City lawyers appealed that verdict, one of the largest in Chicago history, and reached an agreement to resolve the lawsuit by paying a total of $62.5 million, with $20 million coming directly from Chicago taxpayers and the city’s insurance company paying $42.5 million, records show.
Since January 2025, Chicago taxpayers spent at least $103.1 million to resolve 14 lawsuits brought by people who were injured or on behalf of those killed during police pursuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
