The plaintiffs in these cases are often the media, including the Better Government Association. They also include relatives of citizens injured and killed in confrontations with police officers, activists and attorneys preparing civil lawsuits on behalf of criminal defendants.
The police department accounted for more than two-thirds of the overall payouts although sometimes it was a co-defendant with other oversight agencies, including the mayor’s office.
To determine whether similar patterns existed in other government departments, the BGA also examined public records lawsuits filed against nine other agencies from the Chicago Housing Authority to the governor’s office.
None demonstrated the Chicago Police Department’s pattern of repeated denials for similar records.
A closer look at Worcester’s 2020 payroll: 90 of 100 top earners are police officers
Updated 10:07 AM;
Members of the Worcester Police Department represented 90 of the city’s top 100 earners in 2020, according to payroll records.
City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. took home the highest paycheck, making a total of $279,770 in 2020, keeping on trend with payroll records from previous years. Police Chief Steven Sargent received the city’s second-largest salary, taking home $239,130, records indicate.
Aside from police officers, a handful of other employees are among the highest-paid workers, including the city’s assistant city manager, administrators at the Worcester Public Schools, the city solicitor and the late DPW head.
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Bernard Williams was 17 years old when he was convicted of murder for a 1996 killing. He spent 23 years in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit.
Now Williams is suing the city of Chicago and several of the Chicago police investigators who helped wrongfully convict him, according to a federal lawsuit filed this month.
The complaint alleges that detectives with the Chicago Police Department’s Area Four suppressed evidence, manipulated witnesses and fabricated things like a confession to seal Williams’ fate. It claims officers also beat and psychologically abused his co-defendant DeAngelo Johnson during interrogation, coercing Johnson to make a false confession that implicated Williams as his accomplice in the murder.