Chicago considers payout to family of woman fatally shot by off-duty cop

[Alan C.]

City considers payout to family of woman fatally shot by off-duty cop

Chicago taxpayers may spend $4.5 million to compensate the family of Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old woman shot dead by an off-duty Chicago police officer.

The Chicago City Council's Finance Committee will take up that settlement and another $1.8 million settlement Monday, according to an agenda. The full council is expected to sign off on it two days later.

Boyd was shot March 21, 2012 allegedly by Dante Servin, according to a lawsuit filed last year. Boyd and a group were hanging out at Douglas Park when Servin, who lives in the area, allegedly drove by, got in to an apparent shouting match with a man in the group then fired a gun multiple times striking Boyd in the head, the suit alleges.

Melvin Brooks, an attorney for Boyd's family, said the settlement will bring "some closure in terms of getting the matter resolved at this point without having to deal with two to three years of lengthy litigation."

The committee will also discuss a settlement in the case of James Andrews who allegedly confessed to two murders because of police torture linked to former Chicago Police Cmdr. John Burge. Andrews spent decades in prison before his conviction was tossed in 2007.

The suit names Burge, the city and former Mayor Richard Daley among others. Andrews is seeking "to recover damages for the more than 24 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned as a result of Defendants' illegal actions, and for the unconstitutional policies and procedures that allowed those illegal actions to occur," according to the lawsuit.

An attorney for Andrews, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

A spokesman for the city's law department said he could not comment before the committee meets.

This year, the city has approved millions in settlements already. That includes $22.5 to Christina Eilman, a mentally ill woman who was arrested then released in a high crime neighborhood, where she was sexually assaulted before falling or being pushed from a CHA high-rise. Another $10.25 million was awarded to Alton Logan , who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he did not commit in a case also linked to Burge, and $4.1 million went to the family of Flint Farmer, an unarmed, 29-year-old man fatally shot by a Chicago officer in 2011.