Chicago taxpayers spent at least $107.5 million to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct — including wrongful convictions and improper pursuits — in 2024, setting a new record, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News. That is the most Chicago taxpayers have paid to resolve police misconduct lawsuits in a single year since 2011, and 43% more than in 2023, according to WTTW News’ analysis of reports released by the Chicago Department of Law. Annually, the city sets aside $82 million to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits. The actual cost of resolving those lawsuits in 2024 was nearly 31% more than anticipated, forcing taxpayers to spend an extra $25.5 million, according to the analysis. In 2024, the City Council scrambled to close a $982.4 million budget deficit by hiking taxes by $165 million.
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During the past six years, while the Chicago Police Department has been subject to a federal court order to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers, taxpayers have spent at least $472.4 million to resolve police misconduct lawsuits, according to the WTTW News analysis. WTTW News’ analysis of settlements and verdicts reached in 2024 included all cases identified by the Chicago Law Department as caused by some form of police misconduct, including false arrest, excessive force, extended detention, malicious prosecution and illegal search or seizure that resulted in a jury verdict against the city or that the Chicago City Council agreed to resolve with a payment. It does not include cases involving motor vehicle collisions other than crashes caused by pursuits launched by officers. In 2024, city officials resolved at least 122 lawsuits alleging police misconduct, according to WTTW News’ data analysis. The largest payment by taxpayers for a single incident — $20 million — went to a 15-year-old boy
who was gravely injured when a Chicago police officer launched an unauthorized pursuit in 2021. Nathen Jones needs around-the-clock care and is unable to walk, speak or feed himself as a result of the crash. In addition to the $20 million from taxpayers, the city’s insurance company paid Jones $25 million in one of the largest settlements in city history. Taxpayers also paid $20 million to Eddie Bolden, who spent 22 years in prison after being convicted of a 1996 murder before being exonerated in 2016. In October 2021, a jury awarded him $25 million in damages, only to have the city appeal the verdict, which is now final, city records show. Wrongful convictions have long been the most expensive kind of police misconduct in Chicago, costing taxpayers a total of $237.5 million since 2019, and $45.2 million in 2024 alone, or nearly 42% of the total amount spent to resolve allegations of police misconduct, according to the analysis. The cost of resolving police misconduct lawsuits has become a frequent source of political heartburn for members of the Chicago City Council, who are divided along ideological lines about the cause of the escalating costs. The City Council must ratify all settlements of more than $100,000. More conservative alderpeople say the city’s lawyers and their colleagues are too eager to settle cases before trial. According to the alderpeople, that encourages those guilty of criminal wrongdoing to sue the city in the hopes of an easy payday. However, progressive members of the City Council see the expense as perhaps the most visible cost of the fact that city officials have yet to put an end to the decades of scandals, misconduct and brutality that have engulfed the Chicago Police Department. Despite the fact that the federal court order requiring CPD to reform itself
known as the consent decree will mark its sixth anniversary next month, CPD has fully met just 9% of its requirements, according to the most recent report by the team monitoring the city’s compliance with the reform push.
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