After battling in court for body-cam footage that showed a Chicago police SUV barreling into Martina Standley in 2019, activist William Calloway kept pushing for evidence of a possible cover-up.
On Monday, Calloway scored another victory when a Cook County judge entered a default judgment against the department after officials failed to respond to his discovery requests for additional records tied to the incident in South Shore.
Calloway’s attorneys had sought discovery of emails and messages containing his and Standley’s names — records that were pursued in an effort to prove the department was acting in bad faith by initially denying the public records request that ultimately resulted in the release of the body-cam video and other materials.
He’s now seeking $720,000 in civil penalties related to Monday’s judgment, along with hefty attorney’s fees that have already been approved.
In an interview with the Sun-Times, he questioned what information is worth hiding at such a potentially huge cost.
“What is so sensitive in those emails that you all are willing to go into default judgment?” said Calloway, who is perhaps best known for helping pry loose the brutal video of the police killing of Laquan McDonald.
Spokespeople for Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
In a tragic twist to the case, Standley died on Jan. 30 at just 35. The cause and manner of her death were still pending on Monday, complicating a civil lawsuit she filed less than a week after the Nov. 13, 2019, incident.
Her family’s attorney, Andrew Stroth, said he believes “her injuries from being run over by a CPD SUV resulted in a major, traumatic brain and head injury” that was connected to her death.
“Our perspective is the case transitioned from a really bad excessive force case to a wrongful death case against the city of Chicago and the officer driving that vehicle,” Stroth said, though the lawsuit also currently lists a second unnamed officer.
In the video footage unearthed by Calloway, a police SUV can be seen pulling forward from a parked position into Standley in the 2000 block of East 71st Street. She had touched a searchlight affixed to the vehicle.
The officer who was behind the wheel exits the vehicle and walks over to Standley’s motionless body and says, “Girl, ain’t nobody hit you like that.” He then proclaims: “Oh, s---. F---.”
“You OK? Can you breathe? Can you talk?” the officer asks as he pokes an unconscious Standley in the stomach, her right leg wedged beneath the police vehicle’s tire.
A pool of blood forms under Standley’s head as she regains some consciousness.
“She came banging on the window like ‘Boom boom boom.’ I thought I was in reverse. I tried to turn the wheel. It wasn’t nothing like no running from nobody or nothing like that,” the officer tells another cop.
The police vehicle remains on Standley’s leg for over four minutes before the officer asks a sergeant if he should move the vehicle. She was pinned under the vehicle for at least nine minutes.
Jennifer Rottner, a spokeswoman for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates serious misconduct cases, said an investigation of the two officers involved in the incident was ongoing.
Calloway, who is from South Shore, noted the relationship between neighborhood residents and the police has long been frayed, pointing to the fatal police shooting of Harith Augustus in July 2018 just steps from where Standley was struck.
A hearing is set for Sept. 21 to start calculating the amount of civil penalties the city will face in the lawsuit. Meantime, Calloway is planning to hold a news conference Tuesday morning near the scene of the crash.
“I knew that it was misconduct, and my heart went out to Martina seeing her laid out on the ground,” he said of the video. “Seeing so many of these occurrences happen throughout the city throughout the years, I just felt like it’s another incident of a Black person being grossly injured by the Chicago Police Department.”
