Politics
Officers Attempted to Cover Up Pursuit That Killed Mother of 6, Lawyers for Her Family Say
Stacy Vaughn-Harrell, right, celebrates the 2014 graduation of her daughter, Kimberlyn, center. (Provided: Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard, P.C.)
Lawyers for the family of a woman who was struck and killed by a driver being chased by Chicago police in 2017 said Thursday that officers attempted to cover up the pursuit, citing newly discovered video footage.
Lance Northcutt, of the Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard law firm, all but dared members of the City Council’s Finance Committee to reject city lawyers’ recommendation to settle the lawsuit for $27 million during a meeting set for Friday and ask a Cook County jury to decide who was at fault for the deadly crash on June 24, 2017.
Not only did the pursuit that killed Stacy Vaughn-Harrell, 47, violate CPD policy, newly discovered video — which Northcutt called “explosive” — captured officers telling dispatchers that they were not pursuing the car that crashed into Harrell’s car, but simply witnessed the impact, Northcutt said.
“They tried to pass it off as a regular traffic crash,” Northcutt said. “The cover-up was wide. The cover-up was systemic.”
Court records show lawyers for the city do not dispute that CPD officers were pursuing the car that struck and killed Vaughn-Harrell and seriously injured her daughter Kimberlyn Myers, then 21.
Northcutt played a video from inside the car for reporters during a news conference that captured an officer telling a dispatcher “we weren’t even chasing them” when the accident occurred.
Vaughn-Harrell, a mother of six, including a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old, died because of a series of decisions by officers acting like “cowboys,” Northcutt said.
Representatives of CPD and the Chicago Department of Law did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WTTW News about Northcutt’s allegations that police attempted to cover up the pursuit.
Northcutt also played video from officers’ body-worn cameras in the aftermath of the crash that captured audible screams from Vaughn-Harrell’s car as well as Myers crawling over her fatally injured mother and falling out of the badly damaged vehicle while officers looked on.
Other footage captured some officers whispering to each other to avoid their words being captured by their body-worn camera footage while others were told to turn off the cameras, Northcutt said.
There is footage of one officer telling another officer, while surveying the wreckage, “that’s why you don’t chase,” Northcutt told reporters.
Defense lawyers rarely speak to reporters before the City Council votes to settle lawsuits, for fear of making politically tough votes impossible, or violating confidential agreements.
But Northcutt told reporters he had no choice but to call a news conference, after the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board urged alderpeople to reject the settlement and the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward) saying that lawyers had found only the “littlest, teeniest, weeniest” problems with the pursuit.
A Cook County jury found the city liable for Vaughn-Harrell’s death in May 2023, awarding her family $10.2 million, records show.
However, lawyers for the city said errors by the judge deprived them of a fair trial. The judge agreed, and ordered a new trial. Lawyers for Vaughn-Harrell’s family appealed that ruling, arguing that a new trial was not warranted.
In August, an Illinois appeals court affirmed the ruling ordering a new trial, sending the matter back to the Cook County Circuit Court.
Northcutt said he could understand why some alderpeople and officials are questioning why city lawyers recommended paying the family nearly double what the jury verdict would have required after winning a new trial.
“This is an entirely new case,” Northcutt said. “It poses a huge financial risk to the city.”
Not all of the video footage was presented as evidence in that trial, Northcutt said.
“There are no good options for the city,” Northcutt said, saying a decision to take the matter to trial would amount to “gambling with taxpayer dollars.”
John Hendricks, managing deputy corporation counsel, litigation, for the Chicago Department of Law said in a statement to WTTW News that “since the first trial and subsequent appeal, new factual allegations have come to light that required substantial reevaluation.”
“City lawyers have a duty to regularly reassess the value of cases based on the current posture of the lawsuit,” Hendricks said. “Given the substantial new evidence that would be presented at trial, the Department of Law believes the recommended settlement is in the best interest of the taxpayers.”
The incident that led to the fatal crash began when officers patrolling Washington Park heard gunshots and saw a white Kia Sorrento quickly leaving an alley. Officers stopped the Kia, and Officers Shawn Susnis and Megan Ryan, in an unmarked police vehicle, arrived to assist.
The Kia fled, with Susnis and Ryan giving chase. Susnis is no longer with CPD, while Ryan is assigned to the Wentworth (2nd) Police District’s Critical Incident Response Team and earns $115,158 a year, according to the city’s employee database and a CPD spokesperson.
Reaching speeds of 60 mph, the pursuit lasted for six blocks until Kia ran a stop sign and collided with the car driven by Harrell, killing her and seriously injuring her daughter, records show. Police were unable to arrest either the driver of the Kia or its front-seat passenger but recovered a gun from the Kia, records show.
A spokesperson for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which launched three months after the pursuit occurred, said there is no evidence that the pursuit that ended with Vaughn-Harrell’s death was investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority, which was replaced amid the outcry over the police murder of Laquan McDonald.
CPD changed its vehicle pursuit policy in 2020 and then again in 2022 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.”
CPD policy requires pursuits to be conducted by marked vehicles with their lights and sirens activated.
The City Council’s Finance Committee rejected a recommendation from its lawyers last month to pay $8.25 million to the family of Dominga Flores Gomez, 55, who was struck and killed by a driver being chased by Chicago police in 2022.
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.
After that verdict, one of the largest in Chicago history, both sides 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.
Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard represented the Spicer family in their lawsuit against the city. The same firm also represented Nathen Jones, who was 15 years old when an unauthorized police pursuit ended in a crash that left him with a traumatic brain injury, unable to walk or talk.
The City Council agreed in March 2024 to pay Jones’ caretakers a total of $45 million, with $20 million coming from Chicago taxpayers and $25 million from the city’s insurance.
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.
The city’s insurance has paid an additional $63.5 million to resolve those cases, records show.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
