Black Chicago social worker will receive $2.9M settlement offer from city after cops acting ‘on bad tip’ raided her home, terrorized and humiliated her

On the night of February 21, 2019, the raiding party of 13 CPD officers stormed Anjanette Young’s home as she was undressing for bed 

Young was naked when police acting on a bad tip about a felon barged into her home and handcuffed her

Raiding party forced her to stand naked and cuffed in the presence of a dozen officers, while they searched the property

In video of the raid, leaked to media by the victim’s attorney in Dec 2020, a nude and visibly agitated Young repeatedly tells officers they have the wrong home and that there are no guns in the apt

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration offered $2.9million to social worker Anjanette Young over botched 2019 police raid

The City Council’s Finance Committee unanimously approved the settlement for Young Monday

Young sued the city and 12 police officers, alleging conspiracy to cover up civil rights violations

Mayor initially claimed she didn’t know about the raid on Young’s home until footage aired in Dec 2020

Caught in the lie, Lightfoot was forced to admit she heard about the raid, a year back in Nov 2019

Mark Flessner, head of the city’s law dept. resigned in the aftermath of trying to block the release of the raid footage  

City Council is expected to consider settlement after review by Finance Committee on Monday

The City of Chicago offered a $2.9million settlement to local resident, Anjanette Young, over a botched police raid on her home in 2019, during which officers forced the innocent social worker to stand naked and handcuffed while they searched for a felon who actually lived next door.  
Chicago Alderpersons learned of the settlement proposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration on Sunday night, Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The City Council’s Finance Committee unanimously approved the settlement for Young Monday. It will appear on the full council’s agenda Wednesday
Young filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Chicago in February 2021, alleging that officials engaged in a conspiracy to cover up civil rights violations.

“The city has never disputed Ms. Young suffered an indignity” during the raid, city Corporation Counsel Celia Meza said Monday, when she took the unusual step of presenting the settlement to the Finance Committee herself.
Young is alleging willful and wanton conduct by the city and officers, that there was a standard of duty of care officers violated during the raid.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability found some officers engaged in such conduct during the raid, which would make it tougher for the city to defend itself in court, Meza said.

The complaint, which names the city and a dozen Chicago police officers as defendants, alleges that police failed to investigate and verify an informant’s tip, saying that Young’s address was the home of a felon who was in possession of a gun.
On the night of February 21, 2019, the raiding party from CPD stormed Young’s home as she was undressing for bed.
The officers forced the homeowner to stand naked and handcuffed for more than a half hour while they scoured the residence, before realizing that they had the wrong address.
In video of the raid, which was leaked to a TV station by the victim’s attorney in December 2020, a nude and visibly agitated Young repeatedly tells officers they have the wrong home and that there are no guns in the apartment.
Before the footage was broadcast, attorneys for the city sought a court order to prevent the station from airing the video.
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Officers would testify Young was completely naked for 16 seconds before first a jacket, then a blanket were draped around her shoulders, Meza said Monday.
The footage shows that it was 10 minutes before officers allowed Young to head to her bedroom to get dressed. had the lawsuit been gone to trial, a jury might award her $13 million — $1 million for each officer in the apartment — or $16 million — $1 million for each second she was completely undressed, she told aldermen.

Mayor Lightfoot initially claimed she didn’t know about the raid on Young’s home until WBBM-TV first aired the body camera footage. 
The head of the city’s law department, Mark Flessner, later resigned for trying to block the release of the video. 
But after the release of internal emails that contradicted the mayor’s claim, she admitted that she was first told by a top aide about a ‘pretty bad wrongful raid’ back in November 2019.
Lightfoot replied to her staff member’s email summing up the circumstances of the raid, saying, ‘I have a lot of questions about this one.’ The Chicago City Mayor later claimed she had no recollection of that email exchange.   
Young had filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago in connection to the raid, but that lawsuit was dismissed last year.

The incident began unfolding on February 21, 2019, when Young had returned home from her shift at a hospital and was undressed in her bedroom when a group of officers, with at least nine body cameras, broke down her door with a battering ram and crowbar.
The officers were looking for a 23-year-old suspect who allegedly had a gun, but they didn’t verify the address before conducting the search warrant. That suspect lived in the unit next door to Young.
Video footage was released publicly for the first time in December of last year and Young cried as she watched it back and revealed she’s still traumatized.
Officers would testify Young was completely naked for 16 seconds before first a jacket, then a blanket were draped around her shoulders, Meza said Monday.
‘It’s one of those moments where I felt I could have died that night. Like if I would have made one wrong move, it felt like they would have shot me. I truly believe they would have shot me,’ Young tearfully said in an interview with CBS 2 Chicago.

Young had filed a Freedom of Information ACT (FOIA) request for the video to show the public. A court forced Chicago police to turn over the footage as a part of Young’s lawsuit against the department.
‘I feel like they didn’t want us to have this video because they knew how bad it was. They knew they had done something wrong. They knew that the way they treated me was not right,’ Young said.
In the disturbing footage Young appeared shocked when the officers burst into her home after tearing down the door and shouted ‘Police search warrant! and ‘Hands up, hands up!’
‘It was so traumatic to hear the thing that was hitting the door. And it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to put on clothes,’ Young said.
In the clip Young became distressed as she was forced to stand in the living room naked and handcuffed as officers swarmed her apartment.
She yelled at least 43 times: ‘You’ve got the wrong house!’
‘What is going on? There’s nobody else here, I live alone. I mean, what is going on here? You’ve got the wrong house. I live alone,’ she shouted at one point of the clip.
At first an officer tried to put a hoodie sweater on her but it kept falling off. Then another officer ultimately threw a blanket over her shoulders but because she was handcuffed the blanket slipped off her shoulders, leaving her exposed again.
‘I’m just standing there, terrified, humiliated, not even understanding why in that moment this is happening to me,’ she said reflecting on the incident.
In the clip she begged officers to let her get dressed and she told them she believed they had bad information. She had lived in the home alone for the past four years.

‘Oh my God, this cannot be right. How is this legal,’ she cried.
It turned out that police had received a bad tip. A day before the raid a confidential informant told the lead officer on the raid that he recently saw a 23-year-old man who was a known felon armed with a gun and ammunition.
They gave the faulty address to police and cops didn’t independently verify if the address was correct.
It turned out the suspect lived in the unit next door to Young and had no connection to her whatsoever.
The suspect was awaiting trial on home confinement and was wearing an electronic monitoring device, meaning cops could have easily tracked his exact location.
Eventually the officers let Young put on clothes and said: ‘We believe your story.’
In the wake of the scandal over the raid, the Chicago mayor accepted her top lawyer’s resignation, and apologized for her administration going to court in an attempt to block the police footage from airing on television, for refusing Young’s Freedom of Information Act request to get video of the incident and initially trying to sanction Young for reportedly breaking a confidentiality agreement in her lawsuit with the city. 

The 12 police officers connected to the bungled raid had been placed on desk duty pending the outcome of an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which concluded last month that half of them – including officer Ella French who was killed in the line of duty in August – should be punished. 
The police review agency’s findings were met with harsh criticism from Chicago’s mayor, members of the City Council, the president of the city’s police officers’ union and French’s brother, with Lightfoot slamming the decision to recommend a three-day suspension for French months after her killing as the ‘height of tone-deafness.’ 
Young herself previously praised French’s conduct during the raid, saying she was the only person who ‘treated her with dignity.’ 
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Though Young has agreed to the settlement, Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said she should have gotten more, in part because the administration has “revictimized” her in its dealings with her since the incident came to light. “To be at less than [$3 million], while good for taxpayers, I don’t think does justice for Ms. Young,” Lopez said.
The situation garnered national attention in December 2020 after Lightfoot’s administration sought an extraordinary order to stop CBS-2 from broadcasting video of the raid.
City lawyers initially requested sanctions against Young for sharing footage of the episode with media, though they later backpedaled, saying they only wanted sanctions against her lawyer.
Eventually they dropped the request altogether.
Further adding to the embarrassment of the city administration, Mayor Lightfoot was caught out after she falsely claimed she “had no knowledge” of the matter, which occurred before she took office. She also denied and that her administration hadn’t refused to give Young video of the raid.
Lightfoot however, soon acknowledged that members of her staff had told her about the raid via emails in November 2019, as Ch. 2 was reporting on search warrants being served at the wrong addresses. She also said she had no recollection of the emails.