Jury awards nearly $80 million to family of girl killed in crash stemming from Chicago Police pursuit
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A jury awarded $79.85 million Wednesday to a family who sued the City of Chicago after a crash stemming from a police chase killed their 10-year-old daughter.
On Sept. 2, 2020, Kevin Spicer was with his son and daughter in the car near 80th and Halsted streets in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. They were on their way to pick up a laptop so his 10-year-old daughter, Da'Karia, could start e-learning from home for a new school year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officers in unmarked squad car were following a black Mercedes Benz for a traffic violation. Police said they tried to pull over the Mercedes. But the Mercedes did not stop—and ended up first hitting a gray car being driven by a 57-year-old woman while fleeing west on 80th Street, and then slammed into the Spicer family in their tan car after turning onto busy Halsted Street.
Da'Karia was killed in the wreck. Her little brother Dhaamir, only 5 at the time, was severely injured.
Kevin Spicer, now 47, and the woman in the other car both suffered less serious injuries in the crash.
The Spicer family sued asking for $100 million for suffering, emotional distress, loss of society, and other damages.
The jury returned the verdict after the trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Preston Jones.
Lance Northcutt, an attorney for the Spicer family, took the city's insurance carriers to task for not settling the case before it went to trial—after the city had admitted fault in the case.
"Ten years old, in the middle of her life, a straight-A honors student—killed right in front of her father in broad daylight," Northcutt said. "When the city of Chicago eventually admitted liability in this case, and it became a question of what would be full and fair compensation for this family, and it was put on the insurance companies, those insurance companies decided to put profit over humanity; profit over protecting taxpayers."
Northcutt said the family plans to file a separate cause of action against the insurance companies.
