The City Settles

City attorneys have recommended the settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 55-year-old Dominga Flores Gomez, 55, who was killed in a crash at the intersection of 31st and Kedzie on Sept. 28, 2022.

According to the lawsuit, Gomez was driving north on Kedzie Avenue when her car was hit by a Honda HR-V fleeing from police, after the other driver ran a red light at 31st Street.

The lawsuit claims police had been chasing the stolen car that hit her for more than 11 miles, at speeds of up to 100 mph. The lawsuit accuses officers of showing “a conscious disregard for the safety of the public” in continuing an extended high-speed pursuit of a stolen vehicle.

CPD policy requires officers to conduct a balancing test before initiating a vehicle chase to “consider the need for immediate apprehension of an eluding suspect and the requirement to protect the public from the danger created by eluding offenders.”

The lawsuit accuses officers of showing a “a conscious disregard for the risk of injury and/or death” by failing to call off the chase. It claims such a high-speed pursuit was not reasonable given the risk to the public.

Gomez is survived by her five adult children.

The driver who hit her, Juan Vazquez, was charged with first-degree murder in her death, but convicted of a reduced charge of reckless homicide in 2024 and sentenced to 14 years in prison. According to the charges, police had been notified the Honda he was driving had been stolen in a carjacking earlier the same night.

Police have said the crash followed a pair of carjackings earlier in the day.

Hours before the crash, four people carjacked a woman near 34th Street and Claremont Avenue in McKinley Park, just off the Stevenson Expressway, according to police. Next, they carjacked another woman about two miles north in Pilsen, in the 1900 block of West 21st Place, before returning to McKinley Park – this time at 3410 S. Leavitt St., about a block and a half from the first carjacking scene – where they tried to set fire to a pickup truck they had stolen earlier.

Police later spotted the stolen Honda, and chased the SUV into Little Village, where Vazquez crashed into Gomez’s car. Police were able to arrest all four suspects, and recovered two weapons from their vehicle.

The City Council Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on the settlement with Gomez’s family on Wednesday. If approved in committee, the settlement could go to the full City Council for a final vote on Feb. 18.