Chicago Pays $22.5 MILLION To Mentally ILL Woman Who Was Raped and Plummeted From Seventh Story Window After Police Released Her Into High-Crime Area

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=aLZM0eGLWW4


  • Eilman, who is bipolar, should have been taken to a mental hospital for an exam but cops ignored NINE phone calls from her parents


  • The woman, who is now 27-years-old, suffered permanent brain damage from her fall and now needs constant medical attention


  • The settlement is the largest in city history

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...st_read_module


She begged for help

Guards said, `Shut up'

How police released bipolar woman to a night of horror

"I heard that girl screaming for her life, `Take me to the hospital. Call my parents,'" Tamalika Harris, 26, said in a recent interview with the Tribune. "The way she was screaming and kicking on the bars, I knew something was wrong." A woman in a nearby cell recalled the response of police officers: "Shut up."

In California, Eilman's mother was begging for help too, calling Chicago police a dozen times through the night and the following day. How could she rescue her 21-year-old daughter, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was stranded in an unfamiliar city and had been arrested after a disturbance at the airport? Time after time, she says, police told her to call back later.

Three hours later, Eilman plummeted from a seventh-floor window of a nearby public housing high-rise, wearing only underwear--a shock that has raised troubling questions within the Chicago Police Department about whether officers' actions led a vulnerable woman to disaster. A gang member is awaiting trial on charges that he abducted and raped her, but whether Eilman fell, jumped or was pushed remains a mystery. To the amazement of those who found her crushed body, she survived. But she will never fully recover from the damage to her body and brain, her doctor said.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...en-kathy-paine

New Details of Woman's Fateful Fall

Records show how Christina Eilman ended up at a South Side high-rise

15 January 2013

Police Department policy requires officers dealing with mentally ill people to take them to a hospital for an evaluation. But instead of arranging transportation to a hospital, police ultimately sent Eilman miles away to the Wentworth District lockup, where multiple witnesses said jail guards dealt with her erratic and bizarre behavior by repeatedly telling her to "shut up." One inmate testified that black officers repeatedly shouted at Eilman, calling her a "white *****."
http://www.redeyechicago.com/entertainment/music/chi-police-lawsuit-testimony-05-jan05,0,7350604.story

City to pay $22.5 Million to Bipolar Woman Released in High-Crime Area

January 15, 2013 2:15AM:

In the federal appeals court ruling that turned about to be the death knell of the city’s case, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook did not mince his words in talking about the cavalier disregard that Chicago Police officers exhibited for Eilman’s safety before her release.“She was lost, unable to appreciate her danger and dressed in a manner to attract attention,” Easterbrook wrote last spring.

“She is white and well-off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and, thus, a potential target for crime."
http://www.suntimes.com/17574642-761...rime-area.html