City to pay $5.9M to family of boy, 8, run over by cops
By FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com July 27, 2011 11:30AM
Gregory Jones was crossing the street with his niece when a police car hit them.
Updated: November 2, 2011 12:43AM
The city of Chicago has agreed to pay $6.5 million to the family of an 8-year-old boy who died in 2004 — and his injured niece — after the two were run over by an unmarked police car driven by two officers who allegedly concocted a story to cover their tracks. Gregory Jones died two days after being hit while crossing a street in Humboldt Park as a family friend waved him on from across the street. Jones’ niece, 11-year-old Datondra Mitchell, survived the accident, but suffered a concussion, a fractured skull and other broken bones. The Jones estate will get $5.9 million under terms of the settlement, which the full City Council is expected to approve Thursday after the Finance Committee signed off Wednesday. Mitchell will receive $590,000. Had the federal lawsuit gone to trial, attorneys representing the Jones family say they’re confident they would have been able to prove that the officers had made up the story about pursuing a man with a gun to justify their reckless driving. Attorney Liz Mazur contends that the officers were returning to Area 5 police headquarters with an arrested man in the back seat when they got stuck in traffic, swerved onto the wrong side of the street and started speeding near Grand and Kildare. “They got impatient and pulled out into the eastbound lane of traffic on Grand Avenue just because they could,” Mazur said Wednesday. “It was a terrible tragedy that didn’t need to happen. The failure by the officers to take responsibility for their actions and make up a story to cover their tracks makes it even worse and more painful to the family.” At the time of the accident, the two gang officers and their supervisors insisted they had seen a black four-door car with two men in it point a handgun at a man in his 20’s standing at a corner. They said they were chasing that car when they ran over the children. But Mazur insisted Wednesday that the officers’ story fell apart during the investigation. “There was nothing over the radio and they never said anything about the man with a gun until 30 minutes after the incident,” Mazur said. “There were dozens of eyewitnesses, none of whom saw the gunman police were allegedly chasing, including the arrestee in the back seat. He testified he didn’t see any gunman. It was just a made-up story after-the-fact to justify the way the officers were driving.” Law Department spokesperson Jennifer Hoyle said the city settled the case because there were questions about the “basis of the alleged pursuit” and “conflicting witness accounts” on whether the lights and sirens on the unmarked police car were activated at the time of the accident. “The officers said they were following a black car, but that account was not supported by other witnesses. And during the follow-up investigation, the police department was never able to identify this vehicle,” Hoyle said. Asked whether the officers concocted the story, Hoyle said, “I don’t think we have enough information to make that determination. But certainly this would have been a very difficult case to present to a jury given the outcome.” Earlier this month, a 42-year-old dispatcher at the city’s 911 emergency center died after a stolen vehicle involved in a police chase struck her car in Bucktown.
