Crime & Law
Pay 2 Women Injured by Driver Being Chased by Police $650K, City Lawyers Recommend
(WTTW News)
Taxpayers should pay $650,000 to two women struck and injured by a driver being chased by Chicago police, city lawyers recommended, the latest large settlement prompted by a police pursuit.
The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee is set to consider the proposed settlement on Monday. A final vote of the City Council could come June 17.
Maria Navarro Escobedo and Yadira Navarro Escobedo were “severely injured” in the crash that ended the chase launched by two Chicago Police Department officers on Jan. 2, 2023, in Brighton Park, according to the women’s lawsuit.
The incident began when Officers Tobias Houston and Michael Kocerka observed a Mercedes-Benz ML500 near 46th Street and Damen Avenue, and launched a pursuit, according to the lawsuit.
Julian Martha Juarez drove the Mercedes erratically and at a high rate of speed for nearly a mile, pursued by Houston and Kocerka, running a red light at 43rd Street and California Avenue, where the vehicle collided with the 2009 Chevy Malibu driven by Maria Navarro Escobedo, injuring her and Yadira Navarro Escobedo, according to the lawsuit, which also names Juarez.
The lawsuit accuses Houston and Kocerka of violating Chicago Police Department policy by pursuing the car driven by Juarez even though they were driving an unmarked police vehicle. Houston and Kocerka also failed to inform their supervisors that they had launched a pursuit and then failed to end the pursuit when ordered to do so, in violation of CPD policy, according to the lawsuit.
CPD’s vehicle pursuit policy requires 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.”
The pursuit should not have taken place because of the threat it posed to other Chicagoans, according to the lawsuit.
Neither Houston nor Kocerka responded to a request for comment from WTTW News.
It is not clear why Houston and Kocerka decided to pursue the Mercedes driven by Juarez. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has not completed an investigation of the pursuit and crash, according to its database, and a CPD spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry from WTTW News about whether the pursuit was probed by the Bureau of Internal Affairs.
Houston has been suspended four times for a total of nine days for engaging in pursuits that violated Chicago Police Department policy. One of those pursuits ended in a chain-reaction crash involving five cars and another ended with the death of Dominga Flores Gomez, officials said.
In February, the City Council’s Finance Committee rejected a recommendation from city lawyers to pay $8.3 million to resolve the lawsuit filed by Flores Gomez’s family, with a majority of the committee members saying they believed the driver who fled from police was responsible for her death.
Court records show that lawyers for the city and Flores Gomez’s family are continuing to hold settlement negotiations in an effort to resolve that case, despite the City Council’s rejection. A trial date has yet to be scheduled, records show.
An Illinois Appeals Court panel ruled in March that the city was responsible for paying the entire $10.5 million verdict in a separate wrongful death case filed by the daughter of a man who was killed in 2018 after being struck by a car driven by a man fleeing police. That pursuit violated CPD policy, the jury determined.
The appeals court panel rejected arguments from city lawyers that the man who fled from police should be ordered to pay some portion of the verdict because the judge determined he was partially responsible for the crash.
The city has appealed that ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court, which is set to decide this fall whether to take up the case, the court’s spokesperson said.
In May, a Cook County jury determined the city was not liable for the injuries suffered by an Uber driver and his passenger who were struck in March 2023 by a man fleeing a traffic stop initiated by Houston and another officer.
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.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
