(MCT) — CHICAGO — Lawyers for the City of Chicago have asked a federal judge to explore the possibility of settling a 6-year-old lawsuit brought by a California couple who claim their mentally ill daughter was gravely injured after police released her in a high-crime neighborhood.

It is the first public sign that the city is considering settling the lawsuit, which claims police ignored obvious warning signs about Christina Eilman’s bipolar condition and frantic calls from her parents after arresting her for erratic behavior at Midway Airport in 2006. They took Eilman, then 21, to a South Side holding cell miles from the airport and later released her into the unfamiliar neighborhood, where she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted, and then fell from a seventh-story window in a public housing high-rise.