But some accuse her of scapegoating and hypocrisy.
Twenty-four hours after claiming that she didn’t hear about Anjenette Young’s case until Tuesday, Mayor Lightfoot admitted she didn’t remember the case until she first saw the video this week and checked the emails.
“I have no specific memory of it,” said Lightfoot. “In November, I was probably focused on budget issues and getting our budget through the city council.”
WATCH: The Mayor of Chicago gets emotional when he talks about a wrong raid video
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city cannot let what happened to Young happen in February 2019, when the social worker’s house was raided by police who had the wrong address. The Chicago woman was terrified and humiliated, handcuffed naked, before the police finally allowed her to hide.
“I have a duty to make that mistake,” Lightfoot said Thursday, feeling emotional. “It’s been painful, painful and shocking.”
The bodycam video shows that six seconds pass between the first knock on Young’s door and Chicago police officers using a ram to forcibly break into her apartment.
WATCH: Bodycam video sheds light on failed CPD raid
“According to Supreme Court case law, the reasonable amount to wait is 15 to 20 seconds,” said attorney Al Hofeld. “What we find over and over in these cases, even if it is not an order not to knock, they do not add up and announce.
While Young tried to convince CPD that they had the wrong address, an officer – with a search warrant in hand – seemed to realize that this was true quite quickly, even as the police continued to treat her home.
Young got the reason why agents were in her apartment, the wrong one or not.
“If that was your mother, how would you like her to be treated?” Said Chicago Police Chief Superintendent David Brown. ‘You don’t learn 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. ‘
While Supt. Brown announced a review of all search warrants on Thursday, saying the changes only applied to no-knock warrants, which attorneys say represent a very small portion of all those signed by judges.
“We need to make sure this never happens again with reforms, policies and accountability for the mistake,” said Brown.
John Catanzara, Jr., chief of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, said the police are being scapegoated.
“Oh, there’s no question she’s trying to divert the matter from being part of a cover,” said Catanzara. “The same tirade and tirade she did about Rahm Emanuel is the same thing she’s just as guilty of.”
INTERVIEW: Lightfoot pledges to regain confidence after a failed CPD raid
The mayor said she wants to speak to Young in person and has contacted her lawyer. Young’s case and the city’s attempt to prevent the release of the video, prompting the mayor to make changes and order the release of all video in her case.
In the future, victims seeking information on cases will get it quickly, including video, the mayor said. The legal department will review all pending search cases, she said. The video release policy will be reviewed and the mayor wants the timeframe for release to be shortened.
Raiding wrong addresses has cost the city a lot of money in court fees and goodwill.
Hofeld currently represents 10 clients whose homes have been raided by the police, with no arrests or evidence seized. They include Sharon Lyons, who had agents storm into her Back of the Yards apartment in February and aim guns at herself, her autistic son and 4-year-old granddaughter.
“They knocked in the door, the panel fell off the side of the wall, they had guns all over my face, all over my kid’s face,” Lyons said.
That order was enforced a month after the city passed reforms to the search warrant to both prevent unlawful raids and protect children who may be in the home. They would now only be approved if there is a danger to life and safety.
“The new policy is too cosmetic and should be made more specific,” said Hofeld. “The evidence they confiscate won’t be thrown out in the criminal court, it won’t be ruled out if they don’t knock and announce. Therefore, they don’t care … some direct effect on them personally, like direct discipline. “
Critics call this case Lightfoot’s Laquan McDonald.
“We demand an immediate push and approval from the civil-elected council for the accountability of the Civil Police. There must be a mechanism outside City Hall,” said Aislinn Pulley of Black Lives Matter Chicago.
“There is no confidence, there is just no confidence with her,” said 20th Ward Ald. Jeanette Taylor. “I have voters who said she said she didn’t turn out to be what I thought she would be, and I have the same feelings.”
The mayor ordered on Thursday to review the case from top to bottom.
“A lot of trust has been broken,” said Lightfoot. “I know there is a lot of trust in me that has been broken. And I have a responsibility to build that trust that builds the trust of our city, our police station and the entire government.”
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The mayor was asked if she is considering staff changes at the city’s legal department, which has contested the video’s release. She said she is still reviewing what happened.
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