Much has been made about a first-of-its-kind “global” settlement Chicago has reached to close 176 lawsuits tied to corrupt former police sergeant Ronald Watts.
Watts operated out of the now-demolished Ida B. Wells Homes, shaking people down for money and information, and arresting them when they didn’t pay up.
The $90 million deal the City Council adopted last week has been praised for saving money and ending a dark chapter in Chicago’s history of police misconduct.
But what’s been lost amid news of the massive police misconduct settlement are details about the people at the center of the lawsuits roughly two decades after they were wrongfully convicted because of Watts.
Deon Willis and Eson Claybron are two of those people.
“It gives back a little that I lost,” Willis said of the set