May 31--With a trial just minutes away, the Emanuel administration announced a $2 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by two Chicago police officers who alleged they were blackballed by the department for blowing the whistle on corruption, keeping the mayor from having to testify about the code of silence.
The explosive civil rights lawsuit filed by Officers Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria against the city and top department brass had threatened to expose an ugly side to the police code of silence that allegedly put at risk the lives of cops willing to uncover corruption within their ranks.
The city's top attorney, Corporation Counsel Steve Patton, said the decision to settle the case had nothing to do with the fact that the judge had ordered Mayor Rahm Emanuel to testify about what he knew about the code of silence in light of his acknowledgment of its existence in a highly publicized speech to the City Council days after the court-ordered release of the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting.
Patton told reporters the settlement was hammered out over the weekend after attorneys for the officers approached them with a settlement offer that was "substantially lower" than what they had previously demanded. The payout, which needs to be approved by the City Council, includes about $1 million in legal fees, so each officer would wind up getting about $500,000, he said.
The trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday morning at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, but as reporters and spectators waited for the case to be called, U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman announced to those in the gallery that the matter had been settled and the lawsuit was going to be dismissed.
Spalding and Echeverria had just arrived at the courthouse when they got the news. Both said the last-minute settlement came as a surprise to them.
Moments later, the two held hands as their lawyer announced the $2 million deal to a horde of reporters in the courthouse lobby.
Spalding wiped tears from her eyes as she explained how she hoped the publicity surrounding their story would help other police officers make the decision to come forward.
"It's not the easiest choice," Spalding said. "But I think change is upon us. It is a new city of Chicago, it is a new Police Department. And I think that 99 percent of the officers work with integrity and honesty and ... they don't want to work with corruption. I think they're now going to begin to have the resources and the avenues that they need to report it. And for us, that's a win."
While the city has officially acknowledged that the code of silence exists, Patton said the city was prepared to argue at trial that the treatment Spalding and Echeverria received from supervisors was the result of "issues" with their job performance, not a code of silence. But to argue that in front of a jury would have presented a challenge, he said.
"In the current environment and with all the attention that's been given to the code of silence recently, that's a challenging case to present," Patton said.
Both veteran narcotics officers, Spalding and Echeverria worked secretly with the FBI for two years trying to nab the allegedly corrupt crew run by Sgt. Ronald Watts, a former public housing officer notorious for shaking down drug dealers for protection money and pinning false cases on those who wouldn't play ball.
The potentially dangerous undercover work eventually led to federal charges against Watts and another officer, who were convicted and sent to prison. But instead of promotions and praise, Spalding and Echeverria alleged in their a federal whistleblower lawsuit they were blackballed by their own department, labeled as "rats" by superiors, farmed out to do-nothing jobs and even faced threats to their lives.
In a sworn deposition, Spalding testified that when she and Echeverria were reassigned to a different unit in 2011 after their undercover work, their new sergeant warned them the entire team knew they were "rats" and would not back them up on the street if there was trouble.
"He said, 'To be honest with you, I'd hate to one of these days have to be the one to knock on your door and tell your daughter you're coming home in a box. That's how serious it is,' " Spalding testified.
The city has denied that any supervisors retaliated against Spalding or Echeverria. In recent court filings, lawyers for the city have said neither ever formally complained about their alleged mistreatment and that at least one of their reassignments was the result of their reputation for being difficult to work with.
If the case had gone to trial, there likely would have been evidence about an embarrassing string of past police scandals.
Among them is Anthony Abbate, the off-duty officer whose drunken beating of a female bartender was caught on surveillance video and showed around the world. Jurors also might have heard testimony about the Special Operations Section scandal involving a team of officers who brazenly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from suspected drug dealers and others after making illegal traffic stops or searches of their homes.
More recently, reports by other officers at the scene of the McDonald shooting -- that the teen lunged toward police with a knife -- differed dramatically from the dashboard camera video showing him walking away.
Speaking to reporters, Spalding and Echeverria said they hoped the tide had turned in the city and that officers would feel more free to expose internal wrongdoing when they see it.
"We took an oath to serve and protect everybody, not just to serve and protect if you wear a blue shirt or you wear a badge," Spalding said. "That's the oath we took, and we were not going to allow them to tarnish our badges by their wrongdoing."
Asked if he regretted putting his job on the line and enduring a five-year legal fight over the case, Echeverria didn't hesitate.
"It was the right the thing to do," he said.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
