police abuse – Chicago’s Finance Committee will consider $16.5 million in additional police-related settlements, including a $13 million case tied to former Cmdr. Jon Burge.
Chicago is set to consider $16.5 million more in settlements tied to allegations of police abuse, a move that adds to a growing tally of costs borne by taxpayers.
Next week, the City Council’s Finance Committee will be asked to approve two additional settlements totaling $16.5 million. The larger portion, $13 million, is linked to one of the most notorious chapters in the history of the Chicago Police Department.
Arnold Day, now 46, was 18 when he was arrested in 1992 for crimes unrelated to the ones that later derailed his freedom.. His 2019 lawsuit alleges that detectives trained and supervised by former Area 2 Commander Jon Burge beat him and used coercive tactics to force him into confessing to the 1991 shooting deaths of Raphael Garcia and Jerrod Erving.
Day’s suit says he was “falsely confessed” to the murders after officers choked him and threatened to toss him out a window if he did not begin “cooperating.” The complaint describes him agreeing to help only “in fear for his life” and after being told to cooperate “unlawfully” through coercion.. It also claims he was only un-handcuffed from the wall afterward.
Day was convicted of murder and attempted robbery in the Erving case, but acquitted in a separate trial involving Garcia.. He received a 60-year prison sentence for the Erving conviction.. In December 2018, a Cook County judge overturned that murder conviction, citing evidence that he had been tortured into confessing.. He was released, and Cook County prosecutors agreed not to retry the case.
While out of prison and in 2019, Day said he planned to move to Texas, calling it a “beautiful place” and a “land of opportunity,” where he could “rebuild my life.” He also criticized the detectives involved, saying they were hired by the city “to serve and protect, not abuse and neglect.”
Day’s attorney. Jon Loevy. accused Chicago police of “a pattern of picking on people who basically couldn’t withstand coercive interrogations using physical violence. as in Arnold’s case. and psychological intimidation.” One of the officers identified in Day’s lawsuit is Kenneth Boudreau. who has also been named in a number of other wrongful conviction suits.
The second proposed settlement is for $3.5 million and would go to Jose Almanza-Martinez, a 67-year-old street vendor who was killed after a high-speed chase by Chicago police. The lawsuit alleges that Almanza-Martinez was run over and killed by a car being chased at high speeds in 2020.
On the day he died. Almanza-Martinez had completed his sales. dropped off his remaining merchandise at home. and was walking to a Little Village Walgreens to buy bottled water.. The incident followed a broader pattern of high-speed police chases that went wrong. and occurred after a driver stopped for a traffic violation suddenly sped off to avoid police.
Chicago police officers are required, before initiating a chase, to conduct a “balancing test” that considers weather, road and traffic conditions and the risk posed to other motorists and pedestrians.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2026 budget, passed after a hard-fought fight, set aside $82.5 million for police-related settlements for the year.. The city had already spent twice that amount in the first four months of this year alone.. Through April 30, allegations of police abuse have already cost Chicago taxpayers more than $175 million.
Burge was fired by the Chicago Police Department in 1993. Nearly two decades later, he was sentenced to serve prison time on federal perjury charges for denying allegations of abuse raised in a civil lawsuit. Burge died in 2018.
The Finance Committee will also be asked to approve a separate settlement not tied to police wrongdoing.
For $2.25 million, the city would settle a case filed by Access Living, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities. Access Living’s 2018 lawsuit accuses Chicago of building affordable housing that neglected or shortchanged residents with disabilities.
The complaint says a random test of affordable rental units conducted by Access Living in 2016 found that residents confined to a wheelchair could not enter “without assistance” in one-third of the buildings examined.. It further asserts that. over the past three decades. the city funded and developed tens of thousands of affordable rental units without ensuring accessibility required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws.
The suit argues that as a result. low-income people with disabilities struggle to find suitable housing and are often forced to live on the street. in nursing homes. in homeless shelters. or in other inadequate and dangerous conditions.. The investigation, the lawsuit says, was triggered by complaints from a broad range of people with disabilities.
Chicago police settlements Jon Burge Arnold Day lawsuit Jose Almanza-Martinez disability housing ADA City Council Finance Committee
16 million and nobody goes to jail for this, wild
wait so this guy was locked up for like 26 years or something and they just giving him money now?? thats not even close to enough honestly, you cant give someone back that time. my cousin did 4 years for something he didnt do and he still messed up from it.
this is why i dont trust the chicago government period, they been doing this for years and years and just keep writing checks with OUR money like that fixes anything. Burge did this to like hundreds of people and he died just living normal in florida or wherever it was, no real punishment. and now the city acts surprised every time one of these cases comes up like they didnt know. taxpayers keep footing the bill for stuff the city let happen on purpose basically. its not like one bad cop this was a whole operation they all knew about it. and the same politicians who run the finance committee now probably knew people back then who covered it up too i bet.
so he confessed to two murders but only got convicted of one which means he probably did do the other one right?? im not saying the cops were right but something still doesnt add up to me here, if you didnt do it why would you even confess in the first place