A letter sent to police officials from COPA on March 27, six days after Reed’s death, shows that the agency had evidence that officers were routinely engaging in misconduct that violated Chicago Police Department rules and put Chicagoans at risk of a violent encounter with officers for at least a year. 

United Nations human rights investigators said in a statement: “These heinous alleged human rights violations appear to a significant extent to be rooted in systemic racism and have disproportionately affected people of African and Latin American descent.”

A federal court order requiring the Chicago Police Department to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers should be expanded to include traffic stops, but the city’s new police oversight board should be given some power over the hot-button issue, according to a new recommendation. 

Chicago taxpayers have paid $74.4 million since 2019 to resolve lawsuits involving police pursuits, with the city’s insurance coverage paying an additional $25 million, according to a WTTW News analysis.

In 2008, Marcel Brown was arrested for murder at the age of 18. He spent a decade in prison before being exonerated. A federal jury awarded him a record-setting $50 million when he sued the city over his wrongful conviction.

In each of the five cases, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg informed Civilian Office of Police Accountability Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten that the agency known as COPA had erred when it closed those cases because they involved serious allegations of police misconduct.

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.”