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City Should Pay Family Of Boy, 11, Killed In Police Chase $1.3M: Aldermen

By Heather Cherone | June 26, 2017 11:57am | Updated on June 30, 2017 11:50am
 A carjacking led to the police chase and fatal crash that killed Donovan Turnage in 2013.
A carjacking led to the police chase and fatal crash that killed Donovan Turnage in 2013.
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DNAinfo/Darryl Holliday

CITY HALL — The city should pay $1.275 million to the family of an 11-year-old boy killed by a speeding carjacker being chased by police, a City Council committee unanimously recommended Tuesday.

Donovan Turnage was on his way to get Christmas haircuts with his father and older brother on Dec. 21, 2013, when their vehicle was struck at 55th and Halsted streets by a man driving a stolen van being chased by police.

The van slammed into the left side of the family's Chevrolet Suburban after officers tried to curb it during the chase, officials said. Donovan was ejected from the back seat and was fatally injured.

Donovan, a fifth-grader at Morrill Math and Science School, was remembered by his brother Derrick Turnage as a "a joyful, playful, goofy kid."

After the unanimous endorsement of the Finance Committee, the full City Council is expected to approve the settlement at its meeting Wednesday.

"He was a game head," Turnage said. "He said he wanted to make his own video games, be a graphic designer. He was into anything to do with technology. Nobody knew it unless you knew him."

The family's lawsuit against the city said Donovan's death was an “entirely preventable” tragedy caused by the Police Department's decision to chase a stolen car on a crowded street in the middle of the day,

Rockie Douglas, of suburban Beach Park, was charged in 2015 with hijacking several cars and causing the crash that killed Donovan.

After Donovan was killed, Douglas kept driving — eventually hijacking at least two more cars and stealing a 52-year-old woman's purse in a Jewel-Osco parking lot before fleeing to Wisconsin, where he was arrested, prosecutors said.

The finance committee also approved three other settlements:

• $200,000 to a man charged with firing a weapon from the front porch of a Roseland home during New Year's celebrations three years ago

• $200,000 to a woman injured in a fall in her home who said she was paralyzed after Chicago Fire Department paramedics failed to properly stabilize her spine. Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th), a firefighter, voted against settling the suit.

• $180,000 to a man who was shot and shocked with a stun gun by police officers during a foot chase with officers. Ald. David Moore (18th) said he planned to vote against the settlement at Wednesday's City Council meeting.