On Monday, the Chicago City Council’s finance committee voted 22-7 to approve a $280,000 settlement for GoodKids MadCity (GKMC) youth leader Miracle Boyd, who was assaulted by a Chicago police officer during a 2020 summer protest in Grant Park.
Following the vote, Boyd expressed relief that the panel approved the settlement but also spoke about the ongoing trauma she continues to experience five years later.
As Boyd filmed an arrest on her phone, then-Chicago police officer Nicholas Jovanovich swung his arm, knocking her phone from her hand. The phone hit her face, causing several injuries, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
“I’m still receiving hate online and even from alders—calling me a brat, calling me phony,” Boyd said, referencing previous comments made by Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara and Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward), in a Chicago Sun-Times news article. Sposato voted against the settlement. “I don’t appreciate it, but they have their own opinions.”
The impact knocked out one of her front teeth, and the force was so severe that she required root canals before getting six veneers. She also suffered nerve damage.
“They just they don’t like me,” she continued. “They hate to hear my voice and see my opinions and ideas and my views as an abolitionist—especially on what I believe true reparations look like for Black Americans, Black women and girls that look like me and anyone who has suffered any type of violence from the police or who have been slain due to the violence of police.”
For Boyd, now 23, reparations mean access to ongoing mental health services and the ability to experience joy and peace. She told reporters that she is expecting her first child, a daughter, in May and reflected on the world she’s bringing her child into, along with the ongoing challenges in the fight for accountability and justice for other survivors and victims of police violence.
Boyd said she is a “freedom fighter that’s fighting against police violence and brutality for all the lives slain due police violence throughout the city.”
Members of GKMC and other organizers from community-based organizations stood in solidarity with Boyd. Among them was Jalen Kobayashi, a former GKMC member, who has also fought for police accountability and emphasized the need for reparations
“We all need reparations and when you face something like that, just so acute and so tangible, like Miracle faced, you need more than that, and you need more to get back on track,” Kobayashi said, referring to the settlement amount.
Kobayashi received a $30,000 settlement from the city in 2022 after filing a lawsuit alleging excessive force, assault, battery, and other misconduct by Chicago police officers during a 2020 summer protest.
In November 2020, a group of protestors filed a federal lawsuit against the city alleging that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) responded to the city’s summer of protests and demonstrations in 2020 “with brutal, violent, and unconstitutional tactics that are clearly intended to injure, silence, and intimidate,” according to the lawsuit.
Before voting on Boyd’s settlement, alders raised questions and comments.
Ald. Jeannette Taylor (20th Ward) asked whether the police officers deployed to the 2020 protest were wearing body cameras.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Caroline Fronczak confirmed at Monday’s finance committee meeting that officers near Boyd did capture the incident on their body cameras—except for Nicholas Jovanovich, who assaulted Boyd and was not wearing one. Another officer, Andres Valle, also wasn’t wearing a body camera.
Taylor, who voted in favor of the settlement, said, “It wasn’t enough to fix what was broken.”
She also referenced Rekia Boyd, who shared the same last name as Miracle and was killed by former Chicago police officer Dante Servin on March 21, 2012. “The difference between Miracle and Rekia is, Miracle, we get to see her,” Taylor said.
“We have the same last name, so I’m happy to be carrying her legacy alive and all the hard work that she was doing or couldn’t continue to do,” Boyd said. “She deserves justice. Her family deserves justice still, and we continue to uplift her name and give her that light while we can and while we hold this earth.”
Sposato dismissed Boyd’s claims and described protestors as “professional anarchists” and said “they wreaked havoc on police.”
Boyd and other organizers who were present during Monday’s meeting said that wasn’t the goal of the demonstration.
“I was not out there attacking officers,” Boyd told reporters. “Police officers were hurt that day, but several citizens and young people like me were also attacked and brutalized that day as well, and we deserve justice.”
The incident occurred during the Decolonize Zhigaagoong protest on July 17, 2020. Boyd, then 18, was a speaker at the rally, which drew about 1,000 people near Buckingham Fountain. After the rally, the group marched to the Christopher Columbus statue, where armed CPD officers surrounded the area.
In June 2021, COPA completed its investigation and recommended Jovanovich be fired. He resigned in April 2022, avoiding termination. COPA found that he used unnecessary and excessive force and made false and misleading statements in his report on the incident.
COPA also recommended that two other officers involved in the incident, Sgt. Kevin Gleeson and Lt. Godfrey Cronin, be fired. A third officer, Andres Valle, was accused of failing to report the excessive force Jovanovich used when he hit Boyd. COPA recommended a 60-day suspension.
As an abolitionist, Boyd said that jail time was never the solution she wanted. Instead, she advocated for Jovanovich to participate in a series of restorative justice circles—a process she believes would have given her more closure.
The 50-member City Council is expected to vote on Boyd’s settlement and three others at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
“This journey never ends. It’s not something that just happens overnight like it’s a continuous fight,” Boyd said. “I’m teaching my little one that she can grow up and be anything she wants to be and that I’ll support her and instill those same values in her.”
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