The 20 videos of officers involved in the raid show officers rushing through Anjanette Young’s house, weapons drawn expecting to find a criminal with a gun while standing naked and distraught in her living room, confused why the police were there.
The release of the videos on Thursday comes as police face national calls for reform of how they do their job, following a bill that swept the country in response to the Minneapolis police’s murder of George Floyd and other allegations. police brutality.
Lightfoot made her comments days after city law tried to stop a local TV station from publishing videos of the raid, while simultaneously seeking sanctions against Young and her attorney. The city accused the two of violating a court order of confidentiality prohibiting them from releasing the videos. City attorneys returned Friday, filing a motion to drop the request for sanctions.
A review of the warrant, which was made public as part of a court filing by Young’s attorney, shows that police were seeking the warrant based on bad information from an informant. The warrant was approved by the Cook County State Attorney’s Office and a district judge.
City officials have refused to answer basic questions about the warrant and how it was meant.
The purpose of the warrant was at the time and in accordance with electronic monitoring, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the raid told CNN. It was not immediately clear whether the police had contacted local and state officials about the target’s whereabouts. The criminal was never found in the robbery.
Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, did not answer CNN’s calls asking for comment. In an interview with WBBM, Young likened the contact to sexual assault, as the officers found her naked and wearing body cameras at the time. “In any other context, that’s assault,” Young told WBBM.
Videos reveal that Young is distraught by the ordeal as she tries to tell agents they have the wrong house. The footage shows that Young was partially covered within about 30 seconds of the officers coming in, then more fully covered with a blanket within a minute of the warrant issued, and then taken to a bathroom for change about 12 minutes afterward.
“I just stand there, terrified, humiliated, and don’t even understand why, at the time, this is happening to me,” Young told WBBM.
Multiple Chicago Police Department sources told CNN that it is not uncommon to find someone naked in their home when they are issuing warrants in the middle of the night, and that because the department prioritizes arms arrests and the relocation of firearms, agents who get an order approved, usually they serve quickly as weapons can be easily moved from their intended locations.
It is also common for people to tell cops they have the wrong house because the person may not know that a loved one living there is involved in a crime, police sources said.
Neither Lightfoot nor the Chief Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, David Brown, would comment on the information leading to the warrant or what rules, if any, the police violated while the warrant was being issued. A spokesperson for the police station would not say what agents serving the warrant should have done differently.
“You don’t train that at the academy. We hire people who we think can tell right from wrong, and if they can’t tell right from wrong, they don’t have to be police officers,” Brown said on the same news. conference.
Lightfoot said the video “upset her, shocked as a human and as a black woman.”
“I contacted Ms. Young through her counsel to request the opportunity to speak with her directly,” said Lightfoot. “I feel like we are talking to each other at stages and press conferences, and I would like to have that conversation with her in person.”
Bad info from an informant
The ordeal began in February 2019, when Chicago police sought a search warrant based on information from a “John Doe” informant who identified Young’s town hall as the residence of someone police believed to be a criminal with a firearm.
The warrant, which Young’s attorney had filed in court, contained an address, apartment number, and door color that turned out to be Young’s.
According to the search warrant, the informant in the case said they had seen the target of the warrant with a gun and ammunition in the apartment for the past 48 hours.
The officer who issued the order found a photo of the target and showed it to the informant, who then identified the target. The day before going to a judge, the officer drove the informant to the apartment complex and the informant pointed to Young’s house.
“The criminal history of J Doe, including any ongoing investigations, has been presented and made available to the undersigned judge. J. Doe has sworn the contents of this complaint and has been made available to the undersigned judge for questioning,” the warrant stated. .
Hours after the warrant was signed, a camera video shows officers assaulting Young’s door and finding her naked and distraught in her living room.
Camera footage of the body from the time the door was battered to the time an officer handcuffed Young shows, about 15 seconds had passed, and it took a few more seconds for him to lock the handcuffs. He then drops to the floor to pick up a piece of clothing and place it over her shoulders. The item exposes her from the front while other agents keep entering the house.
An officer following him said “all the way to the left, go, go, go” as the officer puts handcuffs on Young. Young asked “what’s going on” as agents came in.
On body cameras, an officer can be seen grabbing a large blanket and then dropping it after envisioning an officer carrying a blanket to Young.
In all, Young was partially exposed for a little over a minute before a blanket covered her. After she was covered in a blanket, an officer took her to the bathroom to change after about 12 minutes.
Days later, the city used the existence of the surveillance investigation to prevent Young from accessing the videos. The city declined the FOIA request, citing the ongoing surveillance investigation. State law allows cities to withhold documents when investigations are ongoing. No police station supervisor launched an internal investigation, even though it was clear that night that they were acting on bad information.
The investigation will likely look at the information used to obtain the order, as well as the behavior of officers during the order. Chicago police sources who viewed the footage told CNN that the raid followed general training guidelines during arrest services where guns are expected. The first officers who came through the door left the rooms, with one of them putting handcuffs on the adults until the area was safe, which is the normal procedure for weapons orders.
Changes to the warranty policy
At Thursday’s press conference, Mayor Lightfoot outlined the changes made to the city’s search warrant prior to the WBBM report, along with other reforms that were being implemented this month. Some changes were made in January, after this case first came to her attention. Others have been implemented more recently.
Warrants now require additional regulatory approval, and warrants issued based on bad information will automatically trigger investigations, Lightfoot said.
It is not clear that approval from the supervisor would have changed the approval of the order that led officers to Young’s home. It was signed by a district judge who heard testimony from someone who identified Young’s home as the home of a criminal and swore under oath that he would be in that house with the criminal while armed.
Two police sources said the sergeant supervising the raid was not the regular supervisor for the officer named on the order.
Police Commissioner Brown said the department was reviewing the search warrants. “We are reviewing all search warrants to make sure we get all the search warrants in play this year. We just want to check everything in this year’s hopper to see what we do have,” he said.
Taking guns off the streets is a matter of cultural importance within the Chicago police, given the magnitude of the city’s gun violence problem, and at news conferences city leaders often talk about the number of guns seized each year.
At Thursday’s press conference, Brown said the city was on track to seize 11,000 guns this year, “each a potentially lethal force.”