City of Chicago ordered to pay $9.6 mil. to family of Northwestern Univ. player killed by cop

Jet, Nov 3, 2003

The city of Chicago has been ordered to pay $9.6 million to the 4-year-old son of a Northwestern University football player who was slain by a Chicago police officer following a traffic stop in 1999.

The $9.6 million award in the civil wrongful death lawsuit against the city came after three and a half days of deliberation and nearly a month of testimony.

Robert Russ was two weeks away from graduation when he was shot in the chest after a high-speed chase on Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway early on the morning of June 5, 1999. Russ was later found to have been unarmed.

His death came within a day of the shooting of another unarmed motorist, LaTanya Haggerty, who was shot and killed by another Chicago police officer. The city settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Haggerty's survivors for $18 million.

Prosecutors said that in the Russ case, Officer Van Watts IV violated departmental rules by breaking out a rear window of Russ' car with the butt of his gun.

However, they also said Russ bore responsibility: Tests revealed he had gunpowder residue on his hands, which prosecutors claimed was evidence that he grabbed Watts' gun after Watts put the gun through the window to order him from the car.

But the jurors in the civil lawsuit rejected the defense's arguments that the gun went off during a struggle, according to jury foreman, teacher Darnell Palmer, 30.

"You could just tell they were all lying," Palmer said.

"... The difference between a traffic step involving a young Black man and a traffic stop involving a young White man is like night and day," stated Russ' mother, Vera Love, who is filing a federal lawsuit against the city, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "[Russ] was afraid. That's why he didn't step."