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CHICAGO — A Chicago mother who said she was badly beaten by Chicago Police after the planned March 2016 Donald Trump rally at the UIC Pavilion should be paid $248,000, city lawyers recommended.
Kathleen Griffin was “peacefully protesting” at the rally with her 13-year-old daughter when police beat her with batons, according to her lawsuit.
Griffin said she was thrown to the ground after an officer struck her 13-year-old daughter, Scout, with a baton after the crowd pushed her into a line of police directing the crowd attempting to leave the area around the Pavilion. The rally was canceled.
Griffin said she was kicked and struck with a baton. After being taken to a hospital, she received multiple staples for a head wound.
Griffin was charged with a misdemeanor for punching an officer, according to the lawsuit. She denied the charges, which were dismissed before trial.
Aldermen will also consider a recommendation to pay Keylon Williams $275,000. Williams alleged officers fabricated evidence against him during an August 2011 arrest by planting a gun and cocaine in the car he was in during a traffic stop.
Williams’ conviction in connection with the traffic stop was overturned after the judge found the officers’ testimony that Williams was holding drugs in his hands at the time of the traffic stop “too implausible to believe.”
The Finance Committee is also set to consider settling three police misconduct lawsuits, including one that would pay $5.25 million to a man who said he was tortured by disgraced Chicago Police Comm. Jon Burge on the recommendation of city lawyers.
Alonzo Smith said he was beaten with a rubber nightstick, kicked in the groin and had a plastic bag put over his head to force him to confess to the 1983 murder of James Fullilove. Smith spent 20 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and the charges were dismissed.
