Aldermen to weigh nearly $25 million in settlements over three Chicago Police misconduct lawsuits
The above video is from a previous report
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago taxpayers could soon be on the hook for nearly $25 million in payments to settle three more lawsuits accusing Chicago Police officers of misconduct, including a $15 million payout to the family of an innocent woman killed during a high-speed chase in 2020.
The City Council Finance Committee is set to vote on the proposed settlements on Monday, along with a fourth settlement involving racial harassment claims a former Water Department worker made against his supervisor.
The largest settlement is a $15 million payment to the family of 37-year-old Guadalupe Franco-Martinez, who was killed when a Chicago Police Department squad car slammed into her SUV, during a high-speed chase of a suspect wanted for multiple crimes in the suburbs.
The horrific crash at the intersection of at Ashland Avenue and Irving Park Road was captured on video obtained by the CBS 2 Investigators.
As seen in the video, a marked CPD vehicle with emergency lights activated ripped through the intersection and collided with Franco-Martinez's Ford Explorer with such force that the vehicles burst into flames - lighting up the night sky with a flash of light.
Then, the squad car spun out and struck a Hummer, injuring the driver and two passengers in the car.
The cop car was one of many that had been tracking the homicide suspect on an hour-long, high-speed police chase across the city. At one point, the suspect crashed into several cars near Irving Park Road after exiting the Kennedy Expressway. He then ran to a gas station at Irving Park and Pulaski roads, stole another car and kept driving.
Scanner traffic reports that police stopped chasing at one point, but the pursuit apparently picked back up - following the offender, who was clocking speeds of at least 100 mph. Eventually, the driver hit a pole, and after a short chase on foot was arrested miles away in the 800 block of West Pershing Road.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability opened an investigation on the day of the crash. That investigation is still ongoing, according to a COPA spokesperson.
A second multi-million settlement on Monday's agenda for the Finance Committee is a $9.05 million payout to Patrick Prince, who served 25 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit before he was exonerated in 2017. Prince has said he was coerced into a false confession.
According to Prince's lawsuit against the city, since-retired CPD detective Kriston Kato and other officers repeatedly punched and kicked Prince, and slammed his head into a wall while interrogating him in the 1991 murder of Edward Porter, when Prince was 19 years old. Prince also accused police of lying to him by claiming he'd been identified as the killer in a lineup, and falsely claimed they had other evidence against him.
Prince's confession was the only evidence against him at trial, as there was no physical evidence linking him to Porter's murder, and no witnesses identified him as the shooter, according to his lawsuit. In 2017, a Cook County judge vacated Prince's conviction, and had him released from prison, finding he had proven his innocence in post-conviction proceedings.
According to published reports, Kato has been accused of beating dozens of suspects into false confessions.
Two other settlements are on Monday's agenda for the Finance Committee.
City attorneys have recommended a $950,000 settlement for Water Department bricklayer Dilan Abreu, who sued the city in 2019, accusing his supervisor of years of racist harassment, including an attempt to push Abreu into a six-foot hole.
Abreu claimed his supervisor repeatedly called him multiple racial slurs against Hispanics from 2015 until 2017, including "stupid f***ing s***," "dumb Puerto Rican," and "Spanish-speaking n*****."
Abreu also filed a physical assault complaint against his supervisor in 2016, accusing his boss of trying to push him into a six-foot hole at a worksite.
The city's Law Department also is recommending a $900,000 settlement with Dwane Rowlett, who was shot by police after fleeing a traffic stop on New Year's Day 2017.
Police have said officers noticed Rowlett speeding and running a stop sign around 2:20 a.m. near 125th and State Streets, and after officers pulled him over, he drove off, sideswiping several cars before crashing into a CPD squad car. Police said, when officers approached the car and found Rowlett in the driver's seat, he began struggling as officers tried to restrain him, and that's when an officer shot him twice.
Rowlett's lawsuit claims he was simply trying to unbuckle his seatbelt when police shot him, and that he was unarmed and never posed a danger to the officers, accusing police of shooting him with no legal justification.
No gun was found at the scene of the shooting.
According to court records, Rowlett was charged with multiple counts of aggravated fleeing, and later pleaded guilty to one count, and was sentenced to 2 years in prison earlier this month. He is also serving a 25-year sentence on an unrelated aggravated kidnapping charge from 2017.