While none of the officers who shot at Reed, who was hit 13 times, have returned to active duty, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling has refused Civilian Office of Police Accountability Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten’s call to relieve them of their police powers.

During the past eight years, city officials have paid at least $11.2 million to hire private attorneys to defend former Sgt. Ronald Watts and the officers he supervised, despite his criminal conviction and the hundreds of people he helped convict who have been exonerated.

During the first six months of 2024, Chicago taxpayers paid $40.5 million to resolve lawsuits alleging police officers committed misconduct, records show.

In all, Chicago taxpayers spent $197.8 million to resolve 42 lawsuits brought by more than three dozen people wrongfully convicted based on evidence gathered by the Chicago Police Department between Jan. 1, 2019, and April 30, 2024, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.

If the verdict is upheld, it would be equivalent to more than 60% of Chicago’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.

“The Chicago Police Department is transforming,” said Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, who was present during a majority of the protests and wore a body camera. “This is a transformation.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson told WTTW News on Thursday night that the Chicago Police Department “most certainly” passed the test posed by the Democratic National Convention, just as the final night of the convention — and the final planned protest — got underway.

A former Cook County prosecutor and two Chicago police officers are facing felony charges alleging they fraudulently collected more than $100,000 in overtime pay.

Cases that involved at least one officer with repeated claims of misconduct accounted for nearly 43% of the $384.2 million paid by taxpayers to resolve police misconduct cases between 2019 and 2023, according to the analysis.

The Chicago Police Department has yet to launch a new study of whether officers are efficiently and effectively deployed across the city to stop crime and respond to calls for help. “I don’t understand what the hold up is,” Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) told WTTW News. “This is years, if not decades, overdue.”

The lawsuit filed by John Velez, who spent 17 years in prison before his conviction in the murder of 26-year-old Anthony Hueneca in Little Village was overturned, is set for trial for July 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Edmond Chang ruled Tuesday.

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability has yet to provide the Office of the Inspector General with the evidence that prompted the commission to call for a probe into “the quality and integrity” of the investigations into police misconduct by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, according to a letter obtained by WTTW News.

In all, it has already cost Chicago taxpayers more than $98 million to defend disgraced former Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, investigate his conduct and resolve lawsuits that allege Guevara violated dozens of Chicagoans’ civil rights, according to WTTW News’ analysis.

The Chicago Board of Education unanimously approved a new whole school safety plan, which brings to an end the use of school resource officers (SROs) inside district buildings following a yearslong review of CPS safety protocols and procedures.

If the city loses at trial, it could cost taxpayers between $18 million and $34 million, according to public warnings that most of the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee ignored.

“I would rather have had Milwaukee Police Department, who know the people of this community, to have at least had an opportunity to address this situation before people who have no ties to this community and don’t care nothing about our extended family members.”