The city’s 2026 budget set aside just $82.5 million for police misconduct settlements, and authorized officials to borrow an additional $283.3 million to cover the soaring cost of lawsuits alleging wrongdoing by police officers, records show.

Marcel Brown's lawsuit was resolved with the largest payment Chicago taxpayers have ever made to compensate someone wrongfully convicted based on evidence developed by Chicago police, according to a WTTW News analysis.

It is not clear how — or why — Benchmark Analytics was selected by officials in the Johnson administration in the fall of 2024 to create the system required by the federal court order known as the consent decree.

David Jones’ federal lawsuit accuses four Chicago police officers, including convicted former Officer David Salgado, of conspiring to frame him in March 2015 for selling drugs in Lawndale.

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.

Instead, Officer Michael Bryant should be suspended for 25 days, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling determined, objecting to the recommendation from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that Bryant be fired.

The federal lawsuit was filed on what would have been Adam Toledo’s 19th birthday, attorneys for his parents said.

The lawsuit is the second to be resolved that alleged police officers beat Black Chicagoans attempting to flee the Northwest Side’s Brickyard Mall as looters began to ransack the mall after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.

There is no evidence that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to turn off the microphones that sent an alert to police officers every time the system picked up suspected gunfire slowed police response times and drove up violent crime, as many warned, according to a new analysis.

Chicago taxpayers paid $27,500 to a Chicago native who was stopped by the same tactical team of officers who would days later pull over Dexter Reed and fatally shoot him in a barrage of gunfire after he fired at officers, records show.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined that four tactical team officers assigned to patrol the Near North (18th) Police District violated the civil rights of three people when the officers improperly searched a car shortly after 8 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2024, records show.

“One proposal is not a silver bullet,” Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) said. “But we should do what we can, when we can.”

Jose Almanza-Martinez, 67, died in the crash that ended the chase on Aug. 2, 2020, near 26th Street and Pulaski Road, records show.

Arnold Day was convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison in 1992 based on confessions coerced by Chicago police detectives trained by Jon Burge, a disgraced Chicago police commander, according to court records.

It is now up to Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Davis to decide whether there is enough evidence to uphold the conviction of Anthony Garrett in connection with the murder of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis, who was shot and killed by a sniper at Cabrini-Green in 1992.

The cost of defending and resolving police misconduct lawsuits has become a frequent source of political heartburn for members of the Chicago City Council.