A file photo shows a crime scene blocked off by the Chicago Police Department. (WTTW News)
The Chicago Police Department’s failure to implement a foot pursuit policy is to blame for the shooting death of Anthony Alvarez by an officer last spring, his family has claimed in a new lawsuit.
The mother of Alvarez’s child filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the city of Chicago and two CPD officers, nearly 11 months after her 22-year-old son was shot as he attempted to run from police in Portage Park.
“It is hard to believe that it has taken so long to implement a basic commonsense policy,” said Tania Dimitrova, one of the attorneys representing Alvarez’s mother Giselle Higuera. “The idea that officers will automatically do the right thing during intense situations, without guidelines and training is pure recklessness.”
Alvarez was fatally shot on March 31, 2021. Body camera footage released last April showed him attempting to run from Officer Evan Solano and another officer.
Alvarez could be seen walking through the gas station parking lot before a CPD squad vehicle with its lights activated begins pursuing him.
Alvarez ran through an alley and then on to Eddy Street, as the two officers began chasing him on foot. A second video recorded by a residential security camera shows Alvarez — who appears to have a gun in his right hand and his phone in his left — stumbling on a lawn and attempting to get around a staircase that leads up to a home.
That’s where one of the officers catches up to him and shouts at Alvarez to “Drop the gun!” twice before firing five shots, striking him multiple times.
According to the lawsuit, those officers used “inappropriate, unwarranted, and unjustifiable force” against Alvarez. Solano has since been stripped of his police powers by the department.
Alvarez’s death, along with the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by an officer during a separate foot pursuit that same month, sparked widespread calls for a new department policy. The department is continuing to take public comment on a revised foot pursuit policy until the end of this week.
But that policy was not in place when Alvarez was killed, the lawsuit states, adding comments made by Mayor Lori Lightfoot last year that such chases “present a significant safety risk issue for officer safety, but also community safety.”
The lawsuit also claims that CPD’s failure to “fairly and impartially investigate officer involved shootings” has created a “culture within the department where officers know they can shoot a citizen with impunity.”
“The defendants knew that their reckless and constitutionally unreasonable approach would not be questioned, investigated, or disciplined,” the complaint states.
A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected] | (773) 509-5431
