The family of a 17-year-old girl who was seriously wounded in a hit-and-run in the Wicker Park neighborhood has filed a lawsuit against the owner of the vehicle.
Frustrated by what they say is a lack of transparency and urgency from Chicago police, Nakari Campbell’s relatives say they’ve had to take the investigation of the Aug. 4 crash into their own hands.
“What the Chicago Police Department has done is they’ve given us empty promises,” the family’s attorney, Cierra Norris, said at a news conference Thursday outside police headquarters. “They have put a community alert on the website, and that is not enough.
“We filed [this suit] to get answers so that we could step into an investigatory process that the Chicago Police Department has refused to do.”
Campbell was walking in a marked crosswalk on Ashland Avenue, with the right of way, about 10:30 p.m., when she was hit by a Mercedes turning left onto Division Street, according to the complaint.
The speeding Mercedes then dragged Campbell along the pavement, the complaint states.
Video from the scene shows Campbell's body flying from the Mercedes as it speeds away, leaving her in the middle of the street.
“Can anybody just imagine their daughters, their sons being dragged half a mile?” Campbell's mother, Imari Bibbs, asked reporters Thursday. “She was supposed to be walking to Wendy’s, and she got dragged to Wendy’s. How can anyone be OK with that?”
Campbell suffered multiple fractured ribs, head trauma, facial fractures and a broken bone in her neck, according to the traffic crash report. She was placed in a medically induced coma as a result of her injuries.
Campbell has awakened from the coma but remains hospitalized, according to the family’s lawyer.
The driver of the red Mercedes, a 2008 C300, is unknown, but the family has sued the vehicle's owner.
Police tried to contact the owner of the Mercedes after the crash, but his mother answered the door and told officers her son did not want to speak with them, according to the traffic report.
Campbell’s family and attorneys have taken it upon themselves to canvass the owner's neighborhood, putting up thousands of community alerts.
“We as a family got together, with this law group got together, and put boots on the ground, going door to door,” Campbell’s uncle, Anthony Hargrove, told reporters. “We did our due diligence to seek answers.”
A lawsuit filed against the owner alleges he negligently allowed his vehicle to be driven by an unknown driver without “due care and caution.” The lawsuit also states the owner should have known the unknown motorist would operate the vehicle in a reckless manner.
Lawyers are not ruling out the possibility that it was the owner himself behind the wheel, but they say they have kept the language broad for purposes of the lawsuit. The vehicle was never reported stolen, according to the family’s lawyers, which leads them to believe it was either the owner or someone he knew behind the wheel.
Campbell, whom family refer to as Sunshine, was preparing to enter her senior year of high school this fall.
“This is her senior year, we’re talking about a young lady entering her senior year with fractures and injuries to her head, loss of her hair. ... So think about that,” Hargrove said. “Senior high school girls look forward to their senior pictures, they’re looking forward to senior events. However, she’s trying to remember things again, learn how to rewalk and recognize faces.”
Chicago police will not comment on the case, as it is still an “open and active investigation.”
Norris told reporters police have reached out to her firm for a possible meeting, but they do not know the nature of what would be discussed.
The lawyers said they will continue to use the resources they have available to investigate this case but need more from the department.
“They knocked on the door. They said, ‘Sorry, we tried,’ and they thought that we were going to forget about Nakari, and we’re not,” Norris said. “We’re going to continue to say her name. We’re going to continue to put feet on the ground. And we’re going to continue to showcase that civilians should not have to do the job of the police.”
