By Hal Dardick
The Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — After hearing an unsettling 911 tape Monday, the Chicago City Council's Finance Committee endorsed a $50 million settlement of 21 civil lawsuits stemming from the 2003 fire at the Cook County Administration Building that left six people dead and 16 injured.

"I'm trapped on the 21st floor," a panicky Jody Schneiderman tells a dispatcher at the start of the nine-minute tape. "Oh my God, hurry."

Her breathing becomes heavier, and her voice more urgent. "Oh my God, I can't stand this," she says. After eight minutes, she is silent.

"I think you can understand why this case was settled," Ald. Ed Burke (14th), the Finance Committee chairman, told other aldermen. "If the jury heard that, I don't think there would be any question."

Schneiderman's call also was played in court last year. She survived and sued the city.

The city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications was accused of failing to call in the right information for the Fire Department to safely evacuate people trapped in the southeast stairwell when doors locked behind them.

Of the $50 million, $35 million would be covered by insurance.

The full council is expected to vote on the settlement Wednesday as well as on two others approved by the committee.

In one, the city would pay $195,000 to the family of Dantwan Betts, who was shot to death by police in April 2006 after he allegedly backed a car on the South Side into one of three officers arresting him in connection with a carjacking.

Although police concluded that the shooting was justified, two of the officers involved, Richard Doroniuk and Mahmoud Shamah, were later accused of being part of a conspiracy to steal money from drug dealers and other citizens and were stripped of their police powers.

In the other, the city would pay $125,000 to a woman who broke her arm after stepping into a hole on Washington Street near Daley Plaza in 2004.

The city had been informed of the hole four days earlier.

Copyright 2008 Chicago Tribune Company