Lawyers for the victim’s family say newly surfaced video shows officers tried to hide a pursuit that ended with a mother of six dead in Englewood.
CHICAGO, IL — Chicago officials were set Friday to consider a $27 million settlement with the family of Stacy Vaughn-Harrell, a 47-year-old mother killed in a 2017 crash, after attorneys said new video and body-camera evidence points to a police coverup during and after the deadly chase.
The proposed payout would close a case that has already moved through a jury trial, a successful city appeal and renewed settlement talks. It also puts fresh attention on how Chicago police handle vehicle pursuits and what city lawyers now describe as substantial new evidence that would be presented if the case went back before a jury. For Vaughn-Harrell’s family, the matter is about far more than a dollar figure. For the city, it is about legal risk, public trust and another costly reckoning tied to police conduct.
The case began the night of June 24, 2017, after officers patrolling Washington Park heard gunfire and saw a white Kia Sorrento leaving an alley. Police stopped the vehicle, but the Kia sped away. Attorneys for the family say Officers Megan Ryan and Shawn Susnis, riding in an unmarked police vehicle, chased it through a residential area even though department rules required a marked squad car to lead with lights and sirens on. The pursuit reached about 60 mph and lasted roughly six blocks, according to court records and attorneys. Near 59th and LaSalle streets in Englewood, the Kia ran a stop sign and slammed into the car driven by Vaughn-Harrell, who was taking her daughter, Kimberlyn Myers, home from a singing performance in Indiana. Vaughn-Harrell was killed. Myers, then 21, suffered serious injuries. “It’s been eight and a half years since our mom’s been gone,” Myers said this week. “To you guys, that’s numbers, but to us that’s lost memories.”
A Cook County jury found the city liable in May 2023 and awarded Vaughn-Harrell’s family $10.2 million. But the city challenged that result, arguing that trial errors denied it a fair hearing. A judge ordered a new trial, and an Illinois appeals court upheld that decision in August 2025. What changed after that, according to family attorney Lance Northcutt, was the discovery of video that the first jury never saw. At a news conference Thursday, Northcutt said one recording captured an officer telling a dispatcher, “we weren’t even chasing them,” even though city lawyers now do not dispute that officers were pursuing the Kia. He also said body-camera footage showed officers at the scene whispering to avoid being recorded, while others were told to turn their cameras off. Northcutt called the newly discovered evidence “explosive” and said, “They tried to pass it off as a regular traffic crash.”
The city has not publicly embraced the family’s coverup claim, but it has acknowledged that the case had to be reassessed. John Hendricks, managing deputy corporation counsel for litigation, said new factual allegations surfaced after the first trial and appeal and forced a substantial reevaluation. He said the Law Department believes the recommended settlement is in the best interest of taxpayers given what a second trial could bring. The injuries described in the case are also part of that risk. Court filings and earlier trial testimony said Myers suffered a broken clavicle, a lacerated liver and other trauma. Vaughn-Harrell left behind six children, including three who were still teenagers at the time of her death. Attorneys have argued that the family’s loss and the new evidence would make the second trial much different from the first. Northcutt told reporters, “This is an entirely new case,” and warned that rejecting a settlement would amount to gambling with taxpayer money.
The dispute lands in a city already struggling with the financial and political fallout from police-pursuit cases. Chicago changed its vehicle pursuit policy in 2020 and again in 2022 to put more weight on public safety and the need for immediate apprehension. Even so, large payouts have continued. In March 2024, the City Council agreed to a $45 million settlement in another pursuit case involving severe brain injuries to a teenager. In December 2024, a jury ordered the city to pay nearly $79.9 million to the family of 10-year-old Da’Karia Spicer, who was killed in a crash after a police chase; that case was later resolved for $62.5 million. WTTW reported that since January 2025, taxpayers have spent at least $103.1 million to resolve 14 lawsuits involving injuries or deaths tied to police pursuits, with city insurance paying tens of millions more. Those numbers have sharpened the debate inside City Hall over when Chicago is legally responsible and when it should fight.
The immediate procedural step is clear. The City Council’s Finance Committee placed the Vaughn-Harrell settlement on its Friday agenda as one of two proposed settlement orders, with $20 million to be paid by the city and $7 million by the city’s insurance carrier. If the committee advances it, the full City Council could take it up at its regular meeting on Wednesday, March 18. The lawsuit names the city and officers Ryan and Susnis. WTTW reported that Susnis is no longer with the department, while Ryan remains assigned to the Wentworth District’s Critical Incident Response Team. Another unresolved point is whether any oversight agency ever fully examined the chase itself. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability told WTTW there is no evidence that the pursuit was investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority, the now-defunct agency that preceded COPA. No criminal charges connected to the chase itself were announced in the new reporting, and police were unable to arrest the Kia’s driver or front-seat passenger that night, though a gun was recovered from the vehicle.
The fight over the settlement has also exposed a split in how the case is seen. Some alderpeople have questioned why the city would move from defending a $10.2 million verdict to supporting a settlement worth nearly three times that amount. Ald. Nicholas Sposato, who attended a confidential briefing, told the Sun-Times he did not understand how the case reached $27 million and argued that critics were seizing on what he called tiny errors in the pursuit. The family’s lawyers answered with a detailed public presentation meant to show those errors were not minor at all. They said officers failed to use sirens that might have warned nearby drivers, chased in violation of policy and then tried to conceal what happened. Northcutt said the officers acted like “cowboys,” while Myers focused on the human cost. She said her mother would still be here if officers had simply used their sirens. That contrast — between legal exposure on paper and grief still raw after eight years — hung over the case as city leaders prepared to vote.
As of Friday, the settlement remained a recommendation, not a final payment. The next milestone is the Finance Committee vote at City Hall, followed by a possible full council vote on March 18. If approved, the deal would close one of Chicago’s most closely watched pursuit cases and spare both sides a second trial built around evidence that was not heard the first time.
Author note: Last updated March 13, 2026.