The family of Derek Jordan, a man fatally shot by a Chicago police officer earlier this year, has filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the officer involved, accusing him of escalating the encounter and resorting to unnecessary deadly force. Announced at a news conference by the family's attorneys, the suit was filed on Friday, August 7, in the Circuit Court of Cook County's Law Division. It names the City of Chicago and the officer, both individually and as an agent of the city, as defendants, with Jordan's mother, Christine Thompson, listed as the plaintiff.
Derek Jordan, who was 42, was shot on March 9 in the Humboldt Park area on the West Side of Chicago, in the 800 block of North Homan Avenue. His vehicle had been spotted after it was linked to an earlier shooting that same day on the Eisenhower Expressway, and the encounter that followed ended with Jordan dead inside his car. Body-worn camera footage of the confrontation has since been released by the city's police oversight agency, which is said to have opened an investigation into his death, and it is that footage the family's lawyers walked through in detail.
According to the account laid out by the attorneys, roughly two seconds after arriving on the scene the officer approached and positioned himself directly next to Jordan's car, screaming at him to get out and warning that he would shoot. Three seconds later, the lawyers said, the officer shouted at Jordan to get out seven times and told him he would kill him, statements they argue only served to escalate an already tense situation. At no point, they maintained, did Jordan brandish a weapon, and the video shows him turning the wheels of his car in the opposite direction, away from the officer.
The lawsuit alleges that just 20 seconds after arriving, the officer fired six consecutive shots from his service weapon through the passenger window of the car, and the family's lawyers pointed to bullet holes visible in the front passenger window as well as to the wheels still turned away from him. At no time before discharging his weapon, they said, did the officer attempt to de-escalate in order to avoid the need for deadly force, describing him as having been in a reckless and uncontrolled state of mind that placed everyone at the scene in danger. The legal team, having reviewed the footage, called the loss of life unnecessary and the result of a failure to de-escalate.
The suit and the accounts around it also touched on what happened in the aftermath of the shooting. The attorneys noted that four days afterwards the officer was relieved of his police powers, though they added that it was unclear whether that step was taken because of Jordan's killing or for some other reason. The city's oversight body, which released the body-camera video, has been carrying out its own review of the case, running in parallel to the civil action the family has now launched over his death.
Jordan's parents are being represented by a legal team that includes the founding partner of Romanucci and Blandin, Antonio Romanucci, along with partner John Gorey, while Ankin Law is also representing the family. The lawsuit sets out counts for willful and wanton conduct against both the City of Chicago and the officer, and the attorneys said they had begun their own civil investigation into what happened. Framing the case as a clear failure to de-escalate, they said their aim was to secure accountability for a death they insist should never have occurred.