Man Wrongfully Imprisoned in Wrigleyville Shooting Sues CPD

A man wrongfully accused in a 1990 murder outside a Wrigleyville bar is suing the Chicago Police Department for $120 million, saying police framed him, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Latherial Boyd, 47, was charged in connection with a street shooting near 3505 N. Clark St. on Feb. 24, 1990. A gunman approached victims Michael Fleming and Ricky Warner—who were selling drugs on the street—and fired several times, killing Fleming and wounding Warner.

Warner was shot in the neck and paralyzed, and three other people in the area were also shot.

All charges against Boyd were dropped in September, however, after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office reinvestigated the case finding it was a questionable conviction. He spent 23 years of his 82-year sentence behind bars.

But now Boyd is accusing CPD of framing him when nine out of 10 witnesses says he was not the gunman.

“Rather than perform any reasonable investigation” Chicago Police “decided it would be easier to frame” Boyd, the suit states, according to the Sun-Times. It also says police fabricated evidence to falsely convict Boyd.

The lawsuit also reads that Boyd lost contact with his two daughters while in prison, calling his time behind bars as a “Kafkaesque nightmare,” the Sun-Times writes. He even says he lost an eye while incarcerated.

Boyd was convicted of First Degree Murder and Attempted First Degree Murder, but his conviction was dismissed based on a number of factors.

First, Boyd voluntarily went into the police station after learning he was a suspect. He was placed in a police line-up, but none of the eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter.

Second, the man paralyzed by the shooting was the only person to identify Boyd as the gunman. His story was inconsistent, though, and was questioned by police.