The Chicago City Council unanimously agreed Wednesday to pay $27 million to the family of a Chicago woman killed by a driver being chased by Chicago police, the latest massive settlement prompted by a police pursuit that violated department policy and ended with a bystander’s death.

The latest survey from the monitoring team charged with enforcing the consent decree found that Chicagoans’ confidence in CPD and the reform effort is exceedingly low, despite a reform push that began six years ago.

The proposed policy “impermissibly allows officers to use race, ethnicity, and other protected characteristics when making decisions on whether to stop, frisk or search people, in violation of federal and state law,” according to the coalition led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) failed to hold a vote on the agreement as scheduled Monday, an indication that the deal does not have enough support to advance to the full City Council.

During the past six years taxpayers have spent at least $472.4 million to resolve police misconduct lawsuits, setting a new record, according to a WTTW News analysis.

The City Council’s Finance Committee is set to consider the proposed settlement on Monday, which calls for taxpayers to pay $20 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $7 million. A final vote of the City Council could come on Feb. 19.

A Chicago Police Department spokesperson told WTTW News in a statement the department does not “utilize quotas” for traffic stops.

James Gibson said he implicated himself in a 1989 double murder after being burned, punched, kicked and slapped by Chicago Police detectives supervised by disgraced former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge during a three-day interrogation.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker directed state hiring officials to block the employment of anyone who took part in the attack that claimed the lives of five members of the U.S. Capitol Police and injured an additional 174 officers.

There were 38 homicides recorded throughout the city in January, an 8.6% jump over the same month in 2024, according to new data from the Chicago Police Department.

An officer who was part of the team that fired 96 times in 41 seconds in the fatal shooting of Dexter Reed resigned from the Chicago Police Department in late 2024 and accepted a job with an Ohio police department.

In all, the settlements approved Wednesday account for nearly half of the city’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.

Convicted in 2006, Ben Baker spent 10 years in prison before he was released in 2016, three years after former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts was convicted of taking bribes.

In all, Chicago taxpayers spent more than $73 million from January 2019 to August 2024 to resolve two dozen lawsuits filed by Chicagoans injured during police pursuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.

The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee is set on Monday to consider the proposed settlement, which would add to the toll of Jon Burge’s legacy of torture and misconduct more than 30 years after he was fired. A final vote of the City Council could come Wednesday.

If approved, it would be the seventh lawsuit filed by Chicagoans who said they were the victims of Reynaldo Guevara’s misconduct to be resolved, at a cost of $78 million to Chicago taxpayers.