Teen who can't walk, speak after crash during unauthorized police chase offered $45 million settlement

An unauthorized police chase leading to a traffic accident that left a 15-year-old boy unable to walk or speak will likely result in a $45 million settlement with the city — one of the largest in Chicago history.

The proposed payment would go to Nathen Jones, who suffered a “massive traumatic brain injury” in the April 2021 crash, according to the family’s attorney.

Jones was a passenger in a 2002 Volkswagen that committed a traffic violation, triggering a police chase through several West Town intersections. It ended at Damen and Grand avenues when the Volkswagen collided with a Toyota — a crash that changed the teenager’s life.

His “severe and permanent injuries” require around-the-clock care, according to the suit, including a “lasting disability and disfigurement” according to the family’s lawsuit. He is unable to “perform routine activities of daily living” and, though he has a normal life expectancy, Jones never will be able to work or support himself — let alone walk, speak or feed himself.

His mother and other family members are responsible for his around-the-clock care. Their lives also will never be the same.

“The proposed settlement is a reflection of the catastrophic injuries sustained by this young man and the uncontested cost of his lifetime care that will exceed $40,000,000,” Lance D. Northcutt, an attorney representing Jones, said in a statement to the Sun-Times.

“Through this settlement, the City and its insurers will avoid what would have been a likely nine-figure verdict in a case where an eighth grader was forever deprived of his ability to walk, speak, or independently function.”

The proposed $45 million settlement is on the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the City Council’s Finance committee and, if approved, could pass the full Council on Wednesday.

It is believed to be the largest settlement since the $50 million pay-out triggered by the fatal fire at 69 W. Washington. Chicago taxpayers would be on the hook for $20 million of Jones’ payment; the rest will be covered by the city’s catastrophic insurance policy.

The unmarked gray Ford Explorer that initiated the police chase at 8:20 p.m. that day was driven by CPD officer Jhonathan Perez. Fellow officers Andrew Pang and Eulalio Rodriguez were passengers.

That chase violated the Chicago Police Department’s newly-revamped pursuit policy. The policy prohibits officers from initiating a chase when the most serious offense being committed by the target of the pursuit is a traffic violation or even a theft.

It requires a so-called “balancing test” that weighs the risks to motorists and pedestrians against the risk of letting the suspect go. Changes in the policy were intended to clarify language on how police supervisors should conduct the balancing test.

In this case, the Volkswagen being pursued was being driven by Khalil Raggs, now 26. At the time, Raggs was a convicted felon with a long rap sheet, but no outstanding warrants. It appears he was chased because he ran a traffic light or stop sign at Wood and Huron and continued to do the same at numerous intersections during the chase.

After the crash, Raggs was convicted of multiple felony counts of aggravated reckless driving and another count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Police recovered a gun from the Volkswagen after the accident. He was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison.

He has since been charged in two other felony cases, including a looting incident during the civil unrest following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

The police report filed after Raggs was arrested for his role in the crash claimed the three officers terminated the pursuit just before the accident.

Referring directly to the pursuit policy, the report states the officers “began to apply the balancing test, but determined that the vehicle was driving recklessly and, with rainy weather condition[s], the driver’s apprehension did not outweigh the inherent danger he was causing.”

When Perez hit the brakes in an attempt to slow down, the Raggs-driven Volkswagen blew through yet another stop sign or traffic signal and slammed into a Toyota Yaris at Damen and Grand avenues, according to that police report.

But the lawsuit filed by Jones’ mother, Erika Boyd, tells a dramatically different story, accusing the three officers of demonstrating “willful and wanton indifference or conscious disregard for the safety of others” and of failing to “terminate the pursuit in compliance with the balancing test.”

All three officers remain on the police force, although Rodriguez isn’t currently earning a paycheck. Pang and Rodriguez were removed as defendants as the lawsuit played out, and Raggs was added.

Perez is assigned to the Near West District and earns $102,870 annually, city payroll records show. Pang makes $117,636 as a detective in Area 3.

Both were named in a civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court alleging they were among a group of cops who conducted a wrongful raid of a home in West Garfield Park. The suit was settled for $52,500, city records show.

Rodriguez has been removed from the city payroll as he awaits disciplinary proceedings before the Chicago Police Board.

In January 2023, then-Police Supt. David Brown moved to fire Rodriguez, who was accused of attacking his wife and breaking a bone in her face in 2017. Rodriguez was further accused of abusing his police powers by accessing a police database for personal reasons and allegedly threatening another person with physical violence and a search warrant.

A police board hearing is scheduled to begin Sept. 5

Over the years, Chicago taxpayers have shelled out millions to innocent pedestrians, motorists and passengers killed or injured during police pursuits gone bad even though the vehicular chase policy has been overhauled repeatedly.

Until now, the two most costly of those incidents happened 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.

Haggerty was a passenger in a car driven by a friend that police stopped at 89th and Cottage Grove, then chased through the South Side, even after a supervisor ordered them to stop. The driver fled the first police stop fearing an arrest for drugs in his car. The car was stopped again, and Haggerty, a computer analyst, was shot by an officer who said she thought she saw a shiny, silvery object she mistook for a gun in Haggerty’s hand.

Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration subsequently agreed to pay $18 million, triple the amount it had ever paid to settle a wrongful death case, to Haggerty’s family.

Early the next morning, police officers chased Russ, a former Northwestern University football player 10 days short of graduation, for three miles down Lake Shore Drive and the Dan Ryan Expressway after Russ refused their order to pull over for driving erratically.

Officer Von Watts IV smashed the tinted rear driver’s side window of Russ’ car before his gun accidentally discharged after Russ grabbed it, according to an internal investigation.

A jury subsequently ordered the city to pay $9.6 million to Russ’ son.

In 2004, another $3 million settlement was paid to a young woman who suffered permanent brain damage when she was the passenger in a car broadsided at Addison and Kedzie by a stolen GMC van that ran a red light while being chased by Chicago Police.

Eight years later, Chicago taxpayers were on the hook again, this time for $1.36 million to compensate a man who suffered severe leg injuries in 2009 after his car was hit head-on by a vehicle being chased by officers who had been ordered to stop the pursuit.

In 2019 came another settlement stemming from a police chase for $4.9 million. It went to the family of 27-year-old Chequita Adams, who was killed in June, 2017 in a high-speed chase that also killed off-duty Chicago Police Officer Taylor Clark.

Two years ago, Chicago taxpayers spent $15 million to compensate the family of a 37-year-old mother of six killed in June 2020, after a harrowing, high-speed chase down expressways and city streets that supervisors had ordered officers to terminate.