Chicago taxpayers will pay $90 million in the first-ever global settlement of lawsuits tied to a single Chicago police officer, under the agreement approved Thursday, to 180 people who spent nearly 200 years in prison.

A Chicago police officer is accused of using his official credentials to purchase an assault weapon and another firearm in an attempt to smuggle them into Mexico.

“It could have been me in the exact same way,” Shunza Walker, 41, told WTTW News.

The Chicago Police Department spent approximately 7% less on overtime during the first six months of 2025 than it did during the same period in 2024, records show.

An appeals court ruled last month that Chicago police officers accused of serious misconduct have the right to ask an arbitrator — and not the Chicago Police Board — to decide their fate, but those proceedings must take place in public.

The first global settlement of lawsuits tied to a single officer is now set for a final vote by the full Chicago City Council on Sept. 25.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuits, which date back to 2017, spent nearly 200 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted based on what they allege was fabricated evidence gathered by Sgt. Ronald Watts, who was convicted in 2013 of taking bribes, and other officers.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office urged U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer to order CPD officers to keep their cameras on “in the immediate aftermath of an officer-involved shooting or death” over the objections of CPD leaders and city lawyers.

Chicago Public Schools’ Loop headquarters was placed under a temporary lockdown Wednesday morning following a reported shooting nearby.

Chicago Police Department officers pointed a gun at a person, on average, more than 11 times every day in 2024, according to an CPD annual report on officers’ use of force.

For the Chicago Police Department, the challenge is acute. The force must preserve public safety in a city already under strain while avoiding the appearance of working hand-in-hand with federal immigration authorities, a stance that could erode community trust and ignite new protests.

Chicago taxpayers paid $6.3 million to settle 54 lawsuits, according to a WTTW analysis of city records. An additional $4.5 million went to pay private lawyers to defend the conduct of CPD officers named in those lawsuits.

Chicago police officers have now shot 16 people, killing eight, less than nine months into 2025, more than in all of last year, records show.

Chicago police data shows overall violent crime in the city is down by about 22% in the first half of the year compared to 2024. There have also been 31% fewer homicides and 36% fewer shootings between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 this year.

According to Chicago Police Department data, 58 total people were shot in 37 separate shootings between Friday and Monday evenings.

Even as the financial toll of decades of police misconduct is likely to grow in the coming months, Chicago exhausted its annual budget of $82.2 million months ago and had spent nearly triple that amount by July 31, according to WTTW News’ analysis.