CPD non-pursuit policy blamed for ‘ambush’ shooting attack of former culinary student in Lincoln Park, victim’s lawsuit says

Dakotah Earley, a former culinary student who was shot during an attempted robbery in Lincoln Park last May, is alleging police could have captured the suspect who was engaged in a “spree” of violent robberies before attacking him, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday.

Chicago police and Mayor Lori Lightfoot are included as defendants in the suit, which claims that police should have been able to stop Tyshon Brownlee but implemented their no-chase chase policy when they spotted a stolen BMW, which was later used as the getaway vehicle in Earley’s shooting, according to the suit.

“As a direct and proximate cause of the Police Department’s non-pursuit policy, Earley was shot in head and back and suffered grave damages that all could have been prevented but for the department’s enactment of its unreasonable non-pursuit policy,” the suit said.

Earley, 24, who had worked at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, was severely wounded May 6 around 3:05 a.m. on the sidewalk in the 1300 block of West Webster Avenue after Brownlee, 19, hid around a corner and pointed a handgun at him, and a struggle for the gun ensued, authorities say. Brownlee got control of the gun and shot Earley twice in the back and once in the head, according to authorities.

About an hour before Earley’s attack, Chicago police dispatchers notified patrol officers that a GPS tracker had located a stolen BMW in the vicinity of Northerly Island, east of Soldier Field, according to the suit. A stolen vehicle matching the description, later identified as the getaway vehicle used by Brownlee following his shooting of Earley, had been taken from an armed robbery victim in Lakeview the previous night, the suit said.

Police subsequently declined to follow vehicle, according to the suit.

Brownlee was later charged with attempted murder and armed robbery in the attack of Earley, who was hospitalized for months and had to have a partial amputation of his leg, and abdominal and jaw surgeries.

At the time of the shooting, Brownlee had been involved in a spree of robberies and violent acts in what can only be described as a violent rampage on Chicago’s North Side, the suit alleged.

Prosecutors at the time of Brownlee’s bond hearing said that from about 10 p.m. May 5 to just after 3 a.m. May 6, Brownlee robbed five people of property such as cellphones and wallets. Some of those victims reported that he pointed a handgun with an extended magazine at them.

Despite having the aforementioned facts, the Police Department’s non-pursuit policy that it had enacted caused the police to not stop the BMW, stop Brownlee and his crew, and to protect the citizens of Chicago, including Earley.

The department of law will review the lawsuit, said spokesperson Kristen Cabanban, who added the department does not comment on pending litigation.

Last year, the city settled a case for $15 million with the family of a mother killed in a high-speed Chicago police chase that sparked department policy change on vehicle pursuits.

Guadalupe Francisco-Martinez, 37, died in June 2020 at Irving Park Road and Ashland Avenue when a Chicago police car that was chasing a suspect blew through a red light and into Franciso-Martinez’s vehicle, which had a green light and was traveling through the intersection.

Two months after Francisco-Martinez’s death, the police department issued an updated policy that introduced additional restrictions and paperwork in those situations — including requiring the officer “check for traffic” before driving through an intersection.

It also upheld the balancing test introduced a year earlier, which calls for officers to evaluate whether the need to apprehend a fleeing suspect outweighs the “inherent danger created by a motor vehicle pursuit.”

Stressing an officer will never be disciplined for ending a vehicle chase, the revised code said: “It is the Chicago Police Department’s goal to ensure department members consider the need for immediate apprehension of an eluding suspect and the requirement to protect the public from the danger created by eluding offenders.”

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