Yet another high-speed Chicago police chase gone bad has triggered a $27 million settlement.
The settlement goes to the family of Angela Parks, a single working mother of five who was rendered a quadriplegic, then died 18 months later — at age 45 — after being struck by the passenger door of a Jeep that Chicago Police Department officers were pursuing because they believed it had been stolen.
At the time of the accident, Parks was a counselor for the Chicago Housing Authority. At the time of the Aug. 21, 2020 accident, she was on her second job, moonlighting as census-taker.
She was hospitalized for 18 months until her death. The first six months she was in the hospital coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, so her children, ranging in age from nine to 19 — couldn’t be with her, and she was unable to speak, her attorney said.
“It’s the most heartbreaking case I’ve ever been a part of,” said Michael Gallagher, an attorney representing the five children.
Gallagher accused the Chicago Police officers involved in the chase of violating virtually every departmental order governing police chases.
Officers in an unmarked vehicle were chasing a Jeep they suspected had been stolen — even though CPD’s general orders dating “as far back as 2000” prohibited officers from conducted a vehicular chase that could endanger motorists or pedestrians “for a property crime or theft,” Gallagher said. The chase occurred shortly before noon on a Sunday in a busy area with lots of traffic and pedestrians.
Never heard them coming, attorney says
They failed to notify a supervisor or police dispatcher of the high-speed chase in a crowded area. And they failed to turn on their sirens — which, Gallagher said, would have prevented Parks from stepping out into an intersection at 30th and Wells, where the accident occurred.
“They’re bailing like they always do. They’re gonna ditch the vehicle and run on foot. As they’re driving over to the corner to bail, the front passenger of the Jeep opens his door and that hits Angela, throws her flying approximately 15 to 20 feet, and her head strikes the foot-high cement stoop of the building right there and her neck is snapped and [she’s] rendered a quadriplegic,” Gallagher said.
Parks never had a chance, because she “never hears them coming,” Gallagher said.
He noted an audiologist hired by the family did a sound test to determine “how loud a siren” would have been from “that make and model” of unmarked police vehicle, how far away that siren would have been heard and how the volume would have increased as the vehicle approached.
“She would have heard (that siren) from upwards of 850 feet away. If that siren was on, she never walks into the intersection. … She never gets struck,” Gallagher said.
The settlement is on the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the City Council’s Finance Committee. Of the $27 million, $20 million will come from Chicago taxpayers. The remaining $7 million will be covered by the city’s catastrophic insurance.
Police chases have cost city millions
There have been calls for CPD to put the brakes on high-speed chases for decades.
• In 2003, Qing Chang was killed after a sergeant disregarded an order to stop pursuing a robbery suspect and the getaway car struck the 25-year-old software programmer in the West Loop as she walked home. The city was hit with a $17.5 million legal judgment in that case.
That case prompted a large-scale re-examination of the dangers of such chases.
Still, history keeps repeating itself.
• In 2021, Lakisel Thomas, a 43-year-old mother of three, was mowed down while crossing the street to pick up lunch for her son in February 2021.
She was struck by a car trying to get away from police after a stop over an improper registration tag. The city settled that case last month for $4.5 million.
• The largest police chase settlement in Chicago history — $45 million — was authorized last year on behalf of Nathen Jones, who suffered a “massive traumatic brain injury” that left him on a feeding tube, unable to walk or speak.In 2023, at the height of Chicago’s carjacking epidemic, some city officials called for the police department to relax its policies restricting car chases.
Two other especially costly settlements stemmed from police pursuits on the same weekend in June 1999.
• LaTanya Haggerty, 26 and Robert Russ, 22, both Black and unarmed, were shot to death by officers after separate police pursuits, touching off a summer filled with protests about alleged police brutality.
Those incidents led to a combined $27.6 million in payments to their families.
Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, was among those sounding the alarm, saying criminals were emboldened that they could get away from cops without any consequences.
He had suggested the police superintendent create a new general order on vehicle pursuits, but the 2020 order that limits those chases remains in place.
Instead, CPD Supt. Larry Snelling has said an expansion of the police department’s helicopter fleet will help officers track down and arrest fleeing criminals in vehicles.