Family of teen Cedrick Chatman settles lawsuit against city, CPD

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Cedrick Chatman

The family of Cedrick Chatman, a teenager shot dead by a police officer in 2013 as he fled from an alleged car-jacking, has settled a lawsuit against the city, according to court records.

The settlement is the latest in a long line of police misconduct cases, which have seen the city pay out more than $500 million in the last decade. Chatman was shot as he sprinted away from stolen car near 75th Street and Jeffrey in 2013, a shooting that was captured on video from a Chicago Police pod camera and surveillance cameras on a nearby South Shore High School.

Chatman family lawyer Brian Coffman said he could not comment on the size of the settlement, on the orders of U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman. The deal comes nearly three years after Chatman’s family filed their lawsuit, and must be approved by the City Council’s Finance Committee.

Lawyers for the city declined comment until after the Law Department has presented the settlement to the Finance Committee.

The allegations made by Chatman’s family contained elements familiar to other recent police scandals that have been captured on video, like the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. As in McDonald’s case, city lawyers for years fought to keep video of the shooting from being released to the public, and lawyers for the family alleged that reports on the shooting had been doctored to clear the officers involved, Officer Kevin Fry, who shot Chatman, and Fry’s partner, Lou Toth.

When video of the shooting was finally released, Gettleman dropped Toth from the lawsuit, finding that the footage showed Toth could have done nothing as his partner chased after Chatman, and was nearly hit himself when Fry opened fire. The case against the city and Fry was set to go to trial in June.

Chatman allegedly stole a silver Dodge Charger on Jan. 7, 2013. Toth and Fry spotted the car on 75th Street, and Toth pulled the officers’ unmarked squad car next to, and slightly ahead of, the Charger at 75th and Jeffery. Then the officers, wearing plain clothes but in clearly marked police vests, jumped out of their car with guns drawn.

Toth ran around the front of the Charger, while Fry ran around the rear, records show. But Chatman appeared to reach down and grab something, opened the door of the Charger and fled southeast across 75th. He ran between two parked cars and then west on the sidewalk. Toth was initially on his heels but fell behind, Gettleman wrote.

Fry, who ran diagonally into the intersection, claimed Chatman had a dark object in his right hand and turned his upper torso slightly to the right. He fired four shots at Chatman, records show. The teen was shot twice, his family’s lawyers have said. The dark object turned out to be a black iPhone box.

Chatman kept running and turned south on Jeffery, the judge wrote. The teen then veered off the sidewalk and into the street near the curb. The judge said Toth continued to chase, and when he turned onto Jeffery, he found Chatman lying on the street.

Chatman told Toth, “I give up, I’m shot,” before Toth put the teen in handcuffs.

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez chose not to file charges against Fry and Toth after reviewing an investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, a spokeswoman has said. The Independent Police Review Authority cleared both officers in the case.

However, Lorenzo Davis, a former IPRA investigator originally assigned to the case, said he was pushed out of the agency for refusing to clear Toth and Fry. Davis told the Chicago Sun-Times last year that Chatman’s death was a murder.

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