Politics
Family of Dexter Reed Asks Judge to Reopen Lawsuit City Council Failed to Settle
Chicago police officers surround an SUV driven by Dexter Reed moments before shots are fired on March 21, 2024. (Civilian Office of Police Accountability)
Lawyers for the family of Dexter Reed, who was killed a barrage of gunfire after he fired at officers during a March 2024 traffic stop, asked a federal judge to reinstate their lawsuit against the city after the Chicago City Council failed to settle the case for $1.25 million.
The city and its lawyers will now have to convince a jury that four officers did nothing wrong when they fired 96 shots at Reed, hitting him 13 times, and fatally injuring him, records show. Less than 30 seconds after the traffic stop began, Reed shot and wounded an officer.
Reed, 26, fired another 10 shots before he died, according to a probe by the Cook County’s State’s Attorney’s Office that determined the officers would not be charged in connection with his death.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability investigation into whether the officers violated department policy during the incident is ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the agency better known as COPA.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Law declined to comment, citing its policy of not discussing pending litigation.
When U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Cummings closed the case in November 2024, he indicated he would reopen the case if the settlement was not approved by the City Council, and schedule a trial. Lawyers for the city have until Dec. 2 to respond to the new complaint, records show.
The eventual trial will represent a high-stakes gamble for the city that comes after the City Council rejected a recommendation from Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry to resolve the case, filed by Nicole Banks, Reed’s sister, and pay $1.25 million.
The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee voted 12-15 on April 11 to reject a recommendation from the city’s lawyers to pay Reed’s family to resolve that lawsuit. The City Council has yet to take a final vote on the proposed settlement.
Chicago taxpayers paid more than $288,195 to private lawyers hired to defend the five officers named in the lawsuit through Dec. 4, 2024.
Lawyers for Reed’s family filed an amended complaint that includes evidence that CPD officials knew the officers who stopped and shot Reed on March 21, 2024, had violated the constitutional rights of other drivers during similar traffic stops and took no action.
“Not only did (city officials) not stop them but fostered this atmosphere and emboldened these officers with their silence,” said Andrew M. Stroth, the attorney for Reed’s family. “Dexter Reed should be alive today and he’s not because of the unconstitutional actions of these officers and the inaction by leadership within the Chicago Police Department.”
The officers who stopped and shot Reed violated the constitutional rights of at least two other drivers on Chicago’s West Side less than three weeks before the fatal shooting and should be suspended, COPA and Supt. Larry Snelling agreed.
The tactical team that stopped Reed improperly stopped and searched Chicagoans during two separate traffic stops on March 1, 2024, and March 6, 2024, according to conclusions reached by Snelling and COPA officials.
Snelling concurred with COPA’s conclusions and found those violations merited suspensions ranging from three days to 25 days for each officer that participated in the stop.
Tim Grace, a lawyer for the Fraternal Order of Police who said he represents the officers, defended the validity of the traffic stops made by the officers in a statement to WTTW News.
“Each and every one of these stops was supported by reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has or was about to be committed and the majority of the stops were supported by actual probable cause,” Grace said. “The officers look forward to presenting their cases to reasonable arbitrators and we are confident that COPA’s incomplete and naive approach to over site will once again be exposed.”
One of the five officers who stopped Reed, Alexandria “Ally” Giampapa, resigned from CPD in November and is now a police officer in Tipp City, Ohio.
Officer Gregory Saint Louis, who was shot in the hand by Reed during the March 21, 2024, traffic stop, is inactive, according to a department spokesperson.
The three other officers who stopped Reed — Victor Pacheco, Aubrey Webb and Thomas Spanos — remain members of CPD and are assigned to administrative duties. Pacheco and Webb earn $108,000 annually, while Spanos earns $102,000, city records show.
Snelling declined to relieve them of their police powers, as the former head of COPA urged nearly 18 months ago.
One of the men pulled over by the officers who would days later shoot Reed sued the city in August, records show.
In October 2024, WTTW News reported that COPA identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and aggressive traffic stops on the city’s West Side at least a year before Reed’s death. But COPA did not alert the commander of the Harrison Police District until six days after Reed’s death that the agency had received numerous complaints related to CPD members “detaining, searching, and/or subjecting citizens to force. COPA’s investigation of these complaints has been impeded by a consistent lack of documentation, Body Worn Camera (BWC) footage, and accurate recordkeeping.”
That letter, and the determination that the officers violated the rights of other drivers could help Reed’s family prove that the city and CPD should be held liable for his death, and prove his rights were violated after CPD brass had been told that officers were improperly stopping drivers and pedestrians on the West Side.
Andrea Kersten resigned as head of COPA on Feb. 13 after leaders of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability informed her the commission planned to recommend her termination for a number of failures they said had compromised Chicago’s police accountability system, eroding public confidence in policing and police oversight.
COPA should have acted sooner to raise the alarm about the pattern of improper traffic stops on the West Side, according to commission leaders.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
