On July 21, 2010, The Jackowiak Law Office obtained a trial verdict in favor of our client Derrick Johnson, who sued the Chicago Public Schools on behalf of his minor son. Johnson’s son was a 14-year-old high school freshman when he was shoved and put in a headlock by a cafeteria monitor at Harlan Community Academy, a Chicago public high school near 96th and Michigan on Chicago’s south side.
On March 6, 2008, Jerry Gillespie, a union carpenter, was falsely arrested, punched in the face and falsely charged with possession of a controlled substance by Chicago police officers Salvador Prieto and Daniel Gomez. Mr. Gillespie was held in police custody for 20 hours and had to defend himself in a criminal trial. Thankfully, the judge at Gillespie’s criminal trial saw that the police were not being truthful and found Gillespie not guilty.
Regina Varela was only 17 years old when she was struck by a stolen van going 55 miles per hour through a busy Chicago intersection. The van driver was trying to evade Chicago police officers, who pursued the van on a dangerous and unauthorized high-speed chase through the Avondale neighborhood.
Martin Reeves was freed from prison last year after spending 21 years in jail for five murders he didn’t commit. In a lawsuit filed March 30, 2010, Reeves contends that he was put behind bars because of torture, destruction of evidence, and other gross misconduct by the Chicago police department.
