Cleveland Pays $4.8 Million for Girl Killed in Police Chase: Bystanders' Rights After a Pursuit Crash

Published May 21, 2024 · Verdicts & Settlements

Tamia Chappman was 13 years old and walking from school to the library. She had nothing to do with the stolen car, the alleged carjacker, or the Cleveland police cruisers chasing it through East Cleveland. In 2019, the fleeing car struck and killed her.

In April, her family settled its lawsuit against the City of Cleveland for $4.8 million. The case is a reminder that when police chase a suspect through city streets, the people most at risk are often the ones who never chose to be involved, and that Ohio law gives those bystanders a path to accountability, though not an easy one.

What happened

The facts here come from reporting by Ideastream Public Media on April 22, 2024.

According to Ideastream, Cleveland officers were pursuing an alleged carjacker when the suspect struck and killed Tamia in East Cleveland. The driver of the stolen car, who was 15 at the time, was later sentenced to 15 years in prison. The lead officer reported speeds of up to 75 miles per hour on a street with a 35 mph limit. An investigation by Cleveland's Office of Professional Standards (OPS), using surveillance cameras along the route, found speeds of up to 90 mph shortly before the crash.

OPS recommended discipline for the lead officer, the sergeant who was supervising the pursuit and responsible for ending it if it became unsafe, and a lieutenant who conducted the internal follow-up despite having been involved in the pursuit. Ideastream reported that the police department and the Department of Public Safety cleared nearly all of the officers, disciplining only two, one of whom had joined the pursuit without a supervisor's permission.

The family's lead attorney told reporters that the city "didn't follow its own policy, didn't follow its own procedure." The city did not acknowledge wrongdoing or policy violations and described the decision to settle as "an extremely difficult one." Tamia's mother said simply that she misses her daughter and hopes the chases stop.

How Ohio law treats police pursuits

Cities, counties and other local governments are "political subdivisions" under R.C. Chapter 2744, and they are generally immune from injury lawsuits. But the statute contains exceptions, and the first one concerns vehicles.

Under R.C. 2744.02(B)(1), a political subdivision is liable for injuries and deaths caused by its employees' negligent operation of a motor vehicle within the scope of their employment. There is an important defense for police: under R.C. 2744.02(B)(1)(a), the city has a full defense if the officer was responding to an emergency call and the operation of the vehicle "did not constitute willful or wanton misconduct." Ohio courts have treated an active pursuit as an emergency call.

That means the question in most pursuit cases is not whether the officers were careless, but whether their driving rose to the level of willful or wanton misconduct.

What "willful or wanton" means, and why policy matters

In Anderson v. Massillon, 134 Ohio St.3d 380, 2012-Ohio-5711, the Supreme Court of Ohio defined the terms. Willful misconduct includes an intentional deviation from a clear duty or a definite rule of conduct. Wanton misconduct is the failure to exercise any care toward those owed a duty, in circumstances where there is a great probability that harm will result. Individual officers lose their personal immunity under a related statute, R.C. 2744.03(A)(6)(b), if they act "in a wanton or reckless manner."

Anderson also addressed department policies. Violating a policy enacted for public safety is not automatically willful, wanton or reckless, but it "may be relevant" to whether the conduct was. In pursuit cases, that matters enormously. Police departments adopt pursuit policies precisely because chases are dangerous: when to start, when to call one off, how many cars may join, and what role a supervisor plays. Evidence that officers ignored those rules, continued at extreme speeds through residential streets, or that a supervisor failed to end a chase that had become unsafe can help show conduct far beyond ordinary negligence.

The hard part: proving the chase caused the crash

Bystander cases have an additional hurdle when the fleeing car, not the cruiser, causes the collision. Some Ohio appellate courts have held that pursuing officers are not a legal cause of the fleeing driver's crash unless their conduct was extreme or outrageous. The Second District Court of Appeals, which covers Dayton, applied that line of cases in Whitfield v. Dayton, 167 Ohio App.3d 172, 2006-Ohio-2917, a case arising from a Dayton pursuit.

That is a high bar, and it is why these cases are won or lost on evidence: dispatch audio, cruiser video, GPS and speed data, surveillance footage along the route, the department's written pursuit policy, and internal investigation records. In the Chappman case, according to Ideastream, it was the internal investigation's use of route cameras that documented speeds of up to 90 mph. Our guide chapter on gathering evidence while it still exists explains why 911 recordings, dispatch logs and nearby video must be requested quickly.

We wrote last year about a different pursuit case in which a cruiser itself struck a driver, and the Supreme Court of Ohio ordered East Cleveland to pay the resulting judgment: an Ohio city learned it cannot ignore an $8 million verdict.

What the settlement shows

A settlement is not a court ruling, and Cleveland admitted no wrongdoing. But a $4.8 million payment by a city to the family of a child killed by a fleeing driver shows that these claims can carry real value when the evidence of the officers' conduct is strong.

What this means for you

If you or someone in your family was hurt or killed by a vehicle during or after a police chase:

• Request the records immediately. Dispatch recordings, cruiser video and pursuit reports may be retained only for limited periods.
• Identify every agency involved. Pursuits often cross city and county lines, and each agency has its own policy.
• Do not assume immunity ends the case. It is a defense with exceptions, not a wall.
• Watch the deadline. Claims against political subdivisions generally must be filed within two years.

Our pages on claims against the government in Ohio, pedestrian injuries, and wrongful death explain how we handle these cases.