The city of Chicago spent $384.2 million to resolve lawsuits that involved approximately 1,300 Chicago police officers who allegedly committed a wide range of misconduct — including false arrest and excessive force — during the five-year period that the Chicago Police Department was under a federal consent decree, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News. Some of the payouts were for repeat offenders: $164.3 million went resolve lawsuits involving 200 Chicago police officers whose alleged misconduct led -- more than once -- to payouts from 2019 to 2023. Cases that involved at least one officer with repeated claims of misconduct accounted for nearly 43% of the cost borne by taxpayers to resolve police misconduct cases between 2019 and 2023, according to the analysis.
This year, from January through the end of May, the city has spent at least $37.6 million to resolve police misconduct lawsuits. A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Law, led by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry, told WTTW News in January that a new legal case management system designed to provide officials with “better data and analysis” was scheduled to launch in March. However, that system has yet to be implemented, five months later. Law spokesperson Kristen Cabanban said that to overhaul the city' entire case-management system "isn’t a small undertaking,” but that implementation is underway.
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