Chicago faces another wave of payouts over police mistakes and city failures

Taxpayers in Chicago are about to shell out another $16. 5 million because city police and officials keep making costly errors. The money covers two fresh cases where officers hurt people and one where the city ignored its own rules for building homes. Arnold Day got $13 million after Chicago detectives, led by a supervisor later fired for torture, forced him to admit to crimes he never committed. In 1992, officers choked him and threatened to throw him out a window until he agreed to talk. Day, only 18 at the time, signed a fake confession to murders he didn’t do. He spent years in prison before a judge threw out his conviction in 2018 after finding proof he was tortured. Now 46, Day moved to Texas to start over. His lawyer pointed out that officers who use violence and fear don’t protect the public—they just ruin lives. One of those officers, Kenneth Boudreau, has been sued many times for similar misconduct.Jose Almanza-Martinez, a 67-year-old street vendor, lost his life in 2020 when a car he was riding in was hit during a high-speed police chase. The driver had run from police after a traffic stop, triggering the chase. Police rules say officers must weigh risks like weather and traffic before starting high-speed pursuits, but those rules clearly weren’t followed that day. Almanza-Martinez was simply walking to buy water when the crash happened. The city’s spending on police mistakes is already out of control. Mayor Johnson’s 2026 budget set aside $82. 5 million for settlements, yet the city blew through that amount in just the first four months of 2024. The $16. 5 million increase is just more of the same. Another $2. 25 million will go to Access Living, a group that fights for people with disabilities. Their 2018 lawsuit says Chicago built thousands of affordable apartments without making sure wheelchair users could enter them. A 2016 test found one-third of these buildings had doors or paths that blocked wheelchair access. The city’s failure left people with disabilities homeless or stuck in unsafe housing, even though federal law requires accessible homes.