Chicago City Wire

For Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward) last week’s City Council rejection of a $2 million settlement in the 2014 police shooting death of Darius Cole-Garrit is a hopeful sign that his colleagues will closely scrutinize future recommended payouts by the city’s Law Department concerning alleged cases of police misconduct. In past cases, Council and its Finance Committee (it recommended the approval of the Cole-Garrit ward) had virtually rubber-stamped the Department’s recommendations. Council rejected the Cole-Garrit award 26-22.

“I don’t remember another case where a recommendation by the Finance Committee was rejected,” Sposato, a former firefighter, told Chicago City Wire. “This is a first.”

Alderman Raymond Lopez (15th Ward), who also opposed the settlement, said in an email that they are seeing “a growing trend of aldermen unwilling to just say yes to settlements that either reward criminality and allow minimal work by the Law Department to defend the name and reputation of our officers and department.”

Sposato said that the vote hinged on the fact that Cole-Garrit’s autopsy contradicted the family’s lawsuit claiming that police shot him in the back. 

For their parts, the police officers said when they approached Cole-Garrit he turned toward them pulled out a gun and pointed it at them before fleeing.

“This isn’t a case where the police in pursuit of a suspect accidently injured or killed someone,” Sposato said. “Clearly the police were within their rights.”

In a separate case, council approved a $750,000 settlement in the case of Bernard Kersh, body slammed by police officer Jerald Williams after Kersh spit in Williams’ face. Sposato opposed this settlement as well.

“This was a spur of the moment reaction,” Sposato said referring to the police officer. “It’s not as if the officer was looking for someone to target to body slam.”

Since 2016, Chicago has paid more than $578 million in judgments, settlements and legal fees relating to claims of police misconduct, WGN reports. More are coming through the pipeline.

Some of the cases stem from accusations by convicted murderers that police coerced their confessions. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has vacated convictions and even withdrawn opposition to the awarding of Certificates of Innocence based on these accusations – without presenting new evidence to indicate innocence.

One concerns a settlement recently reached in the wrongful conviction cases of Tyrone Hood and Wayne Washington, convicted of the 1993 murder of college basketball star Morgan Marshall Jr.

The case in federal court was expected to go to trial sometime this summer with a retired detective named in the case, Kenneth Boudreau, saying for an earlier story that he and his former partner Jack Halloran were willing to testify that they did not force Hood and Washington, as the two allege, to confess to a crime they did not commit.

Both detectives have been named in other wrongful conviction cases, but insist they did nothing wrong in their investigations.

Details of the settlement were unclear and an attorney representing the detectives did not respond to a request for comment.

“I’ll scrutinize this like the others,” Sposato said for an earlier story. “We have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers.”