Emails show Mayor Lightfoot voiced concern to CPD Superintendent Brown
Sun-Times Media Wire
CHICAGO — David Brown wasn’t even sworn in yet as Chicago police superintendent when he got an email from the mayor troubled by an internal report documenting the high cost of police chases and crashes.
“In the last 5 years, the city has paid out almost $50 million in litigation related to police pursuits, and this does not account for damage to police vehicles, lost time due to injuries on duty, etc.,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote Brown on April 16 last year, about a week before his swearing-in.
“So, I pay close attention to pursuits when I see them,” she added. “This is another area that must be fixed.”
Two-thirds of the 270 police chases in 2019 – a total of 180 – ended in crashes and eight people died, according to a “pursuit litigation analysis” prepared for Lightfoot and marked “confidential.”
Supervisors ordered chases to be terminated in 112 of those pursuits, yet half of them still ended in crashes, the report found. One caused the death of a bystander.
Read Full Story Here: https://abc7chicago.com/over-half-of-2019-cpd-chases-ended-in-crashes-emails/10626210/