Chicago poised to pay $5 million to family of teen shot 16 times by police
A proposed settlement of $5 million to the mother of Laquan McDonald, 17, is scheduled to be discussed at Monday's monthly Finance Committee meeting at City Hall, according to an agenda for the meeting posted online Friday.
The $5 million settlement — which still would need to be approved by the full council later this month — comes nearly six months after McDonald was shot 16 times outside a fast-food restaurant on the Southwest Side.
The family has not filed a lawsuit, but McDonald's mother, Tina Hunter, is the administrator of her son's estate in Cook County probate court.
According to accounts given by Chicago police and the Fraternal Order of Police at the time, McDonald wielded a knife when officers confronted him on Oct. 20. Police had received a call about 9:45 p.m. of attempted break-ins of cars near 40th Street and Karlov Avenue in the Archer Heights neighborhood.
FOP spokesman Pat Camden said McDonald ignored officers' commands to drop the knife as he walked toward Pulaski Road. More officers arrived, and police tried to box the teen in with two squad cars. Camden said McDonald punctured one squad car's front passenger-side tires and damaged the front windshield.
Officers got out of their car and started to approach McDonald, telling him again to drop the knife, Camden said. One of the officers opened fire, he said, when McDonald lunged at them. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital about an hour later.
A spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office said the autopsy found that McDonald was shot 16 times to the chest, neck, back, arms and right leg.
Martin Maloney, a spokesman for police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, said Friday that the officer who shot McDonald has been stripped of his police powers and put on paid desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation. The identity of the officer has not been made public.
The Independent Police Review Authority, the agency that investigates shootings involving Chicago police officers, said Friday it has referred the case to the Cook County state's attorney's office — routine in all police-involved shootings.
"The shooting that led to Laquan McDonald's death continues to be investigated by prosecutors, and as a result we cannot offer any further comment," police review authority Chief Administrator Scott Ando said in a statement.
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