After a Chicago Police Department (CPD) SUV rolled over 15-year-old Astarte Washington during the anti-police uprisings in Roseland on May 31, she laid on the pavement fearing for her life. She could hear the loud screams of protestors, as police officers ordered the crowd to move to the sidewalk. She heard the police and ambulance sirens, but she couldn’t move.
A short few minutes before, police officers had ordered the large crowd of protestors to get on the ground — Astarte complied as her older brother and others in the crowd ran away.
She did what she was told, according to her mother Tawana Washington, but that wasn’t enough to keep her safe.
“Growing up my daughter would even debate family and friends about why police were important and good people in the neighborhoods,” Washington said about her daughter’s admiration for the police. “My kids grew up liking and trusting the police.”
Now, Washington said, her daughter doesn’t “want nothing to do with them,” adding that Astarte’s trust in the police has diminished — along with her interest to leave the house lately.
Sitting next to Astarte’s grandmother, Bonita Washington, and family attorney, Robert Fakhouri, Washington fought back tears as she spoke about her daughter at a June 29 press conference at Fakhouri’s office, The Fakhouri Firm, LLC. The family filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago on Friday, seeking at least $50,000 in damages, for “willful and wanton” conduct and “disregard for the safety of others.”
Astarte is currently receiving medical treatment, and seeing an orthopedic surgeon, for fractured bones in her leg and pelvis. She didn’t attend the press conference because she didn’t want people to see her injuries, according to her mother.
“I tried to get her to come, but she just said she didn’t want to come,” Washington said. “She didn’t want to be in the camera. She didn’t want people to see her like that.”
On Memorial Day weekend, Chicago joined Minneapolis, Louisville and other cities across the country in days of civil unrest and protest following the police killings of George Floyd on May 25, Breonna Taylor on March 13 and countless others who have died at the hands of police and vigilantes.
On the evening of May 30, Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a city curfew at 9:00 p.m. following what she described as “criminal activity” during the day’s protests. On June 1, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called in 250 additional National Guardsmen and state police to assist law enforcement departments across the state.
On May 31 in Roseland on Chicago’s far South Side, protestors took the streets, along with individuals who engaged in looting neighborhood stores, seeking justice for Black lives murdered by police. However, Astarte wasn’t engaging in the protest on 111th and South Michigan Avenue that day, according to attorney Fakhouri. She and her older brother, Kevin Johnson, were heading to their home in the West Pullman neighborhood after leaving their grandmother’s house in the 9700 block of South Yale Avenue.
Because of the protests, Fakhouri said, the #34 Michigan bus route was out of service, which forced Astarte and her brother to walk home. That’s when they came across the large protest crowd on 111th and Michigan.