The civil unrest that devolved into rampant mayhem after the murder of George Floyd was one of the most chaotic days in Chicago history.
Within 24 hours, there were 18 homicides — one of the city’s most violent days in 60 years. The inspector general’s blistering critique of the Chicago Police Department’s handling of the citywide chaos concluded it was “outflanked and unprepared” for problems it should have anticipated and that rank-and-file officers were “left to high-stakes improvisation without adequate supervision or guidance.”
Now Chicago taxpayers will pay yet again for the citywide chaos that overwhelmed CPD officers: a $525,000 settlement to the mother of Astarte Washington. Astarte was 15 when she suffered a hairline hip fracture during that unrest.
The teen was ordered to the ground by police during a protest on the Far South Side, then run over by a squad car after an officer failed to put the car in “Park,” according to a lawsuit filed by the family.
At the time, Astarte, an eighth-grader at DuBois Elementary School, was acting student council president and captain of the basketball team.
On May 31, 2020, Astarte and her brother had left their grandmother’s home in the 9700 block of South Yale and were trying to catch a bus to their own home in the 100-block of 120th Place. But buses were not running because of the ongoing mayhem, so they tried to walk home, encountering a “large group of protesters and looters” that forced them “off the sidewalk and into the middle of street” at 111th Street and Michigan Avenue, the family’s lawsuit said.
Several police officers ordered the crowd to stop and hit the ground. Astarte and her brother “immediately complied” while the rest of the crowd “began to run and disperse,” the suit states.
In the street was a marked 2017 Ford Explorer, driven by CPD Officer Christopher Holmes. Holmes neglected to put the vehicle in park, according to the lawsuit, which caused it to strike Astarte and “roll over her body twice with the rear and front driver’s side tires.”
The girl survived, but suffered “traumatic and severe permanent injuries,” according to the lawsuit.
Robert Fakhouri, an attorney representing the Washington family, acknowledged CPD officers were under tremendous pressure that fateful day while trying to control the unruly and violent crowd — but that doesn’t “justify an officer’s recklessness in responding to that scene.”
The officer “is responsible for ensuring that the mayhem is controlled” but also “liable for the mayhem that they create,” Fakhouri said.
“In responding to the scene ... they created mayhem,” he added. “There’s no justification or excuse.”
There was no looting in the area , the attorney said. Video evidence shows there was “more a police presence than there were civilians” in the area, the attorney said.
Astarte “not only complied” with the officer’s order, Fakhouri said, but was “in such fear, being someone who grew up on the South Side of Chicago” that she obeyed the police because she believed “should she not have, she may have lost her life.”
As a result, even as “she observed the vehicle roll over her body ... she was too afraid to get up and move in order to avoid being shot by police,” Fakhouri said.
The $525,000 settlement is one of four on Monday’s agenda for the City Council’s Finance Committee.
The list also includes a $940,000 settlement to Lamar Johnson, who was severely injured when his car was hit by a speeding police vehicle that ran a red light while chasing a fleeing motorists wanted for a non-moving violation.
