As national scrutiny continues to tighten on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez in the wake of events following the 2014 shooting and killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, other cases of fatal officer-involved shootings in the city are still moving through the legal system.
One such case is the death of Niko Husband, who was killed by Officer Marco Proano in July 2011. Last month, a Cook County jury found that Proano killed Husband without justification in the 2011 incident and awarded Husband’s family, including his mother Priscilla Price, $3.5 million. However, yesterday Cook County Judge Elizabeth Budzinski negated that decision on the grounds that jurors had indicated that they believed that Proano feared for his life. According to the Chicago Tribune:
Price's sense of relief was short-lived, however. In a controversial move, the judge overseeing the case negated the jury's award of $3.5 million in damages and instead found in favor of the city. It turned out that the jury, in answering a written question as part of its verdict, had found that the officer had a reasonable belief that his life was in danger when he opened fire.
In an interview with the Tribune, the foreman of the jury said he was stunned by the sudden reversal, especially after jurors had inquired by written note if their answer to that question would affect the outcome of the verdict. The judge didn't directly answer, instead telling jurors to use their best judgment, he said.
"My face was on fire," said the foreman, who spoke on condition of anonymity and noted that deliberations had gone late into that Friday night. "We put so much into this. ... I thought it was a really odd thing to go from $3.5 million to nothing because of wording on a piece of paper."
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Unlike in the McDonald case, no video existed of Husband's shooting. Police defended the shooting, saying Husband had a gun and resisted arrest. A police union spokesman at the scene that night even suggested that Husband had tried to use a woman as a human shield, prompting a veteran officer — identified in court records as Marco Proano — to fire three rounds into Husband's chest at close range.
Because police union spokespeople are always accurate and never biased, right? Although generally, if a jury finds that an officer feared for his or her life the officer will not be held responsible, the judge had a chance to clarify and an obligation to clarify that point to jurors. But this looks like a judge willfully misguiding or taking advantage of a jury to take the burden away from the city and police. This also looks like another example of how the burden for anyone suing or pressing charges against officers is incredibly difficult to meet.
Proano was cleared of wrongdoing and potential disciplinary action by the the notorious Chicago Independent Police Review Authority as well. However, two years after Husband’s death, dashcam video showed him firing into a car of unarmed black teenagers. A federal lawsuit was brought forward and eventually settled. Husband’s family was not aware of this during the proceedings, as the IPRA only includes names of police officers in reports of shootings in public records if a formal complaint is made.
Price and family attorneys are demanding that judges reverse the ruling back to the original verdict.