City Pays $20 Million So Far In 2018 For Police Misconduct Cases
CHICAGO (CBS) – On Monday, the city paid to settle more police misconduct cases—this time for a total of $4.6 million—but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
CBS 2's Lauren Victory reports, an analysis of Chicago's settlements shows $20.3 million came out of city coffers for police-involved lawsuits in just the first eight weeks of 2018.
About half of that taxpayer money is for cases marked: excessive force, false arrest and illegal search and seizure.
"It does add up," said attorney Jon Loevy. "You're right. These are not all big ones, There's some big ones coming down, too."
On Feb. 9, the city issued a $9.3 million check for a reversed conviction case handled by Loevy.
He says he's well into litigation with several other wrongfully convicted clients who are also suing for millions of dollars each.
Chicago's Department of Law says 460 civil rights cases against the city are currently under review.
"From an economic standpoint, dollars and cents, it would be cheaper to solve the problem than to keep paying out on lawsuits," Loevy said. "We've heard rhetoric lately that it is time to make a change and time will tell if that's going to happen."
Loevy welcomes reforms, even if it means less work for his firm.
"Our goal is that they put us out of business," he said.
For some perspective, the city paid out only $2.2 million for the first eight weeks of 2016 and $6.1 million for 2017.
