Gary, IN

The Gary Police Department (GPD) has $9 million in documented police misconduct settlements, anchored by the wrongful conviction case of James Hill Jr. Hill served 17 years in prison for a 1980 gas station robbery he did not commit. He was exonerated by DNA evidence and filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Hammond and retired Police Captain Michael Solan Sr., alleging that Solan had suppressed exculpatory evidence and fabricated testimony.

In November 2022, a federal jury awarded Hill $25.5 million - $25 million in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages against Solan and the City of Hammond. The verdict was the second time a federal jury had ruled in Hill's favor. The defendants appealed, and the parties settled in 2023 for $9 million. As part of the settlement, Hill agreed to dismiss related litigation.

A second case involves Willie Donald, who was wrongfully convicted and spent years in prison before exoneration. Attorneys for Donald indicated a settlement was reached in January 2026, nearly 10 years after his release, though the amount has not been publicly disclosed.

A former Gary officer was separately sentenced in November 2023 for using excessive force in violation of federal civil rights laws - one of a small number of officers in this dataset to face federal criminal conviction for on-duty conduct.

For insurance underwriters, the Gary dataset illustrates the actuarial risk of wrongful conviction cases: they generate liability decades after the underlying incident, making them difficult to price in standard annual policy cycles. The $9 million settlement arose from a 1980 incident - a 43-year tail that no standard actuarial model would have captured.