On May 12, 2023, a Cook County jury returned a verdict of ten million one hundred and
fifty-three thousand dollars against the City of Chicago and two police officers engaged in a highspeed chase in a residential part of Chicago on June 24, 2017. The car they were chasing struck
and killed the driver Stacy Vaughn Harrell, a mother of six, and injured her daughter who was also
a passenger in the car. The City of Chicago and individual police officers maintained during trial
that there was no chase. The three-week trial was held in Judge Toya Harvey’s courtroom in the
Daley Center.
Attorney Zane Smith said of the verdict, “This was a case where six children, three of them minors,
are left without a mother because of another high-speed chase that never should have been initiated
or continued by the CPD. Chicago police officers have a hard and difficult job to do as it is, but
these reckless chases have to end.”
Boris Samovalov, co-counsel for the family said, “This multimillion-dollar verdict was reached in
less than an hour by the jury. I think that says a lot about the strength of the evidence presented
and that this chase should have never happened.”
The case is Henry Harrell, Independent Administrator of the Estate of Stacy Vaughn Harrell vs.
City of Chicago, 2018 L 006323.
The Estate of Stacy Vaughn Harrell, et al., were represented by Zane D. Smith and Boris
Samovalov of the trial firm of Zane D. Smith & Associates, Ltd., 111 West Washington, Suite
1750 Chicago, IL 60602,(312) 245-0031; [email protected]