A protester punched by a Chicago police officer at a heated 2020 demonstration is now in line to get a $280,000 settlement from the city.
Activist Miracle Boyd lost a front tooth at a protest near Grant Park’s Christopher Columbus statue when former Officer Nicholas Jovanovich struck her phone, causing it to hit her face, according to a Civilian Office of Police Accountability report. Finance Committee aldermen advanced the settlement Monday, setting it up for a final vote Wednesday.
Before the committee’s 22-to-7 vote decision, Boyd told the aldermen the damage went far beyond her teeth.
“I remember it like yesterday, because for some reason I can’t get over the harm that was caused to me,” she said. “There is no reason why that officer should have done that, because it was already decided that I deserved this.”
Boyd and Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, briefly argued during her public comment after Sposato called her a “phony.” Later, the Northwest Side alderman referred to a video of Boyd joking about her success raising money on a GoFundMe after her injury and argued the protest was filled with “professional anarchists.”
“These people were there to do nothing but wreak havoc, fight with the police, tear down the statue because they didn’t agree with the art that’s been up for 90 years,” Sposato told aldermen. “We’d be a bunch of fools to support this money.”
Former Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said days after the protest that “agitators” had hijacked the demonstration and injured nearly 50 officers. The statue was not toppled during the protest, but was removed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot a week later.
Department of Law attorney Caroline Fronczak said the settlement would in part be used to pay legal fees. Eight officers captured body-worn camera footage of the altercation, but the two officers primarily involved, including Jovanovich, were not recording such video, she added.
COPA determined Jovanovich used “unnecessary and excessive force” when he hit Boyd and stopped her from recording a police encounter. He resigned his police position in April 2022. He had been set to move on to the Chicago Police Board for a disciplinary trial, where he faced firing.
Boyd has worked as an organizer with the anti-violence group GoodKidsMadCity, an organization for which Mayor Brandon Johnson has shared strong support. Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, highlighted her own relationship with the group to argue the deal should be approved.
“I really don’t feel like I have to say anything,” Taylor said. “$280,000 is not enough to fix what was broken that day.”
The council also approved three additional settlements totaling $2.9 million tied to police driving.
One case involved a $400,000 deal for a pedestrian struck by a squad car when an officer ran a red light. The officer was “distracted by a call,” and the person he hit has since suffered chronic traumatic headaches, city attorney Margaret Mendenhall Casey said. In the two additional settlements, drivers pursued by police in alleged violation of Chicago Police Department chase policies hit and killed victims.
Officers had pursued an erratic driver at 87 mph without alerting supervisors ahead of the crash that killed 40-year-old Mignonne Robinson, Mendenhall Casey said. The evading driver pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and was sentenced to over three years in prison, she said.
Ahead of another crash in the Garfield Park neighborhood, police pursued a driver who had committed a traffic offense at 30 mph in an alleyway, Mendenhall Casey said. The February 2020 crash killed 54-year-old Ezell Ricky Island. The settlements for the victims’ families are for $1 million and $1.5 million, respectively.