City Of Evanston Changes Course, Agrees To Pay After Cop Backs Into Woman's Van
UPDATED 06/28/12 11:50 a.m.
EVANSTON, Ill. (CBS) -- The City of Evanston did an about-face Thursday, and decided to pay for repairs a woman needed after a police officer backed into her van.
As WBBM Newsradio's Mike Krauser reports, Amy Jarjusey was originally told that she would not receive reimbursement for the damage as the officer backed into her van with his squad car.
But on Thursday morning, the City of Evanston told Jarjusey it would be paying for the damage to the van after all, as well as the fee for a rental car Jarjusey had to use while her van was being repaired.
Jarjusey says she was in her van on a one-way street. She had to stop because a police cruiser was blocking the street while the officer wrote a parking ticket.
"Surely he sees me, right? So he's backing up and backing up," she said.
She says he got back in his car and then backed up, right into her van.
The officer, Jarjusey says, was "very apologetic." She says he called another officer to come and write a report. She says both officers told her it was the officer's fault and the damage would be covered, "no problem."
She says the Evanston city Law Department and the city's third-party insurance claims administrator, CCMSI, initially told her the damage would be covered.
But she later received an e-mail from CCMSI, saying her claim was being denied because the officer had backed into her car while "in the execution or enforcement of (the) law," and thus was not liable under state statute.
"I think that it's an injustice. It's a double standard. It doesn't add up," Jarjusey said at the time.
She also enlisted the help of her alderman, Ann Rainey, in an effort to resolve the matter.
Evanston officials has not commented on why the city decided to change course and pay for the repairs.
