>> Chicago taxpayers paid more than 175 million dollars to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct.

That's according to a W T Tw News analysis from the first 4 months of the year.

Our Heather Sharon joins us now from City Hall with more.

So Heather, remind us how much money the city's 2026 budget set aside to resolve these lawsuits.

>> So the city council set aside just 82.5 million dollars to resolve these lawsuits, which could become a source of increasing pressure on the city's already cracked cash, strapped finances.

They did authorize officials to borrow an additional 283 million dollars acknowledging that this cost of these lawsuits has grown significantly between 2024 2025.

The cost to resolve police misconduct lawsuits doubled.

And there's no doubt that 2026 will set a new record once again >> so the latest massive settlement will go to a man who spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

How much is the city going to pay him?

>> Carl Reed will get 9.5 million dollars after he spent, as you said, nearly 2 decades in prison, convicted of murdering his neighbor back in Now there's no physical evidence that ever tied read to the murder.

And the police detective who helped convict him has been found by Illinois Torture Justice Commission to have abused other suspects in Chicago.

Police custody >> and do we have any sense of how much more the city will spend to resolve police misconduct lawsuits in the coming months.

>> We don't a lot of the final tally will depend on what juries do in the coming months.

But we do know it will cost at least another 45 million dollars.

And that will go to more than 200 people who spent decades in prison saying after they said that they were convicted on false evidence from now convicted former Sergeant Ronald Watts as part of a global settlement approved by the city Council last year in all the city will pay 90 million dollars to those men and women.

The city's pay.

Just half of that in January.