City Settles Photojournalist's NATO Police Brutality Lawsuit For $100,000

By Kate Shepherd in News on Dec 1, 2015 6:05PM



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While police accountability and the firing of police chief Garry McCarthy are the topics of the day at City Hall, on Monday it was announced that Chicago would pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit from a photojournalist who claims that Chicago police officers beat him and destroyed one of his cameras during the 2012 NATO summit.

Getty Images freelancer Joshua Lott was covering a downtown NATO protest on May 20, 2012 when he saw two police officers mistreating a young man, he says.

"They had him down on the ground and they were beating him with batons," Lott told WBEZ. "The officers that were beating him just weren't happy that I was taking pictures and told me I needed to leave. I indicated that I was a working journalist and who I was working for."

He continued taking pictures until police officers beat him, he told WBEZ.

"They came over and approached me a second time," he said. "They took me off to the side of the road and threw me to ground, and I had numerous officers beating me the same way they were beating the kid that I was photographing—with the batons—and stomping on me."

Police officer Glenn Evans, who is awaiting trail on felony charges of excessive use of force in a separate case, allegedly hit Lott with a baton a bunch of times. Officer Matthew E. Tobias, a deputy chief who retired a few weeks later, slammed Lott's camera to the ground, according to Lott.

Evans was promoted by Supt. Garry McCarthy to command the Grand Crossing police district three months after the incident with Lott, according to WBEZ. But he now facing separate allegations that he put "the barrel of his gun into a suspect's mouth and a Taser to his groin while threatening his life during a 2013 incident.

Lott also alleged that Officer Christopher Taliaferro, currently an alderman representing the 29th Ward, helped "bring a misdemeanor reckless-conduct charge against Lott," even with the knowledge that there was no probable cause to support the charge.

The charge against Lott was dismissed six weeks after the arrest. The City of Chicago denied Lott's allegations from the lawsuit in court filings, and Law Department officials did not answer WBEZ questions about the case.