City Council committee to consider more than $4M in payouts in police misconduct cases

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago taxpayers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in a possible settlement with the family of a man shot and killed by police.

The city will consider Tuesday payouts totaling more than $4 million for three separate police misconduct cases.

In the biggest case, city attorneys reached a deal to pay $3.75 million to Esau Castellanos-Bernal's three teenage children for damages in the death of their father and for an alleged cover up by CPD officers.

In March 2013, Castellanos crashed his car on Chicago's Northwest Side. His blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit.

Two responding officers, who denied chasing Castellanos, fired 19 shots into his vehicle. Three of those shots hit him.

"These two police officers acted in a ridiculously poor manner. They executed a man," said Daniel O'Connor, the Castellanos family's attorney.

After the shooting, one officer told detectives Castellanos shot at them and that a bullet hit him in the head. But no gun was ever found on Castellanos, no other bullets recovered and it was determined that neither officer had been shot.

Castellanos' death remains under investigation by the city and the FBI.

The two other settlements in police misconduct cases that will be considered Tuesday total about $1 million.