City of Chicago added as defendant in lawsuit stemming from deadly crash involving off-duty CPD officer
CHICAGO (CBS) --- A family is now suing the City of Chicago on behalf of a Texas woman who was killed in what police said was a drunken driving crash involving an off-duty police officer last year in the River North neighborhood.
The officer herself, Tangie Brown, and the bar where she had been before the crash, were already named in the wrongful death lawsuit. The city is also now a defendant—on the grounds that Brown had been at a city-approved holiday party at the bar, and no one at the party stopped her from being overserved.
Maria Schwab, 56, who went by "Tonie," was walking outside the House of Blues around 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 7 of last year, when a car jumped the curb and hit her and a second woman. Schwab was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she died. The other woman who was hit suffered only minor injuries.
Her family first filed a wrongful death lawsuit in April against Brown, accusing her of driving drunk at the time of the crash. The lawsuit also accuses Tree House Chicago, a bar at 149 W. Kinzie St., of violating the Illinois Dram Shop Act, which allows drinking establishments to be held liable for the actions of their customers if they serve them enough alcohol for them to get drunk.
In January, Brown turned herself in on felony charges of aggravated DUI involving death and aggravated use of a communication device involving death; misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and failure to give information or render aid; and traffic citations for improper lane usage and failure to reduce speed.
Brown was later indicted on two counts of aggravated DUI, one count of reckless homicide, and one count of aggravated use of a communication device involving death, according to court records.
Prosecutors have said Brown admitted to having three drinks at a fellow officer's retirement party at Tree House before the crash, and her blood alcohol level measured 0.093 after the crash, above the legal limit of 0.08.
