No more no-knock warrants, say Black female aldermen
For Black women of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, the botched raid on the wrong house that humiliated an innocent woman and forced a crying and pleading Anjanette Young to stand naked and handcuffed before male police officers for 40 minutes was personal and painful.
On Wednesday, they turned their outrage into action.
They introduced a sweeping ordinance that would ban no-knock warrants and require the Chicago Police Department to execute search warrants in the “least intrusive” manner possible to prevent property damage and, more importantly, to protect the “physical and emotional health” of those involved.
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) said aldermen are demanding what “a lot of people would assume would happen anyway” when police raid a home.
“Are there elderly people? Are there children present? How many people do you expect? How are you gonna conduct this raid without harming people, especially if there might be people [there] that aren’t the subject of the raid?” Hadden said.
During a virtual news conference before Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Young thanked the aldermen for championing her cause in a way that will “foster a better sense of safety for all families in Black and Brown communities” who interact with police.
They should not go through “what I experienced on Feb. 21, 2019,” she said.
“They could have allowed me to get dressed and continued what they were doing. They could have allowed me a moment to compose myself. There were so many things that went wrong in this moment.”
Young could have fought a private legal battle to avoid a public airing of the bodycam video. But going public to prevent it from happening to anyone else, she said, is the way she was raised.
“My grandmother was a civil rights activist. I grew up in Mississippi, watching her fighting for civil rights and voters rights and things that she . . . cared about in her community,” she said.
“So, it’s in my DNA to stand up and shout that this is not right and to fight — not only for myself, but for others.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has apologized to Young, initiated a mediation process that could trigger a lucrative financial settlement to resolve the social worker’s lawsuit against the city and imposed a series of reforms to rein in CPD’s history of wrongful raids.
But the ordinance introduced Wednesday goes a whole lot further.
◆ No-knock warrants would be forbidden and all residential raids conducted between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
◆ CPD would be required to “record and publish data” about each residential warrant executed, including location, names and badge numbers of officers involved.
◆ CPD could not seek a warrant “relying solely on an informant’s representation.” The informant’s credibility must be assessed, and the information supplemented by an independent investigation.
◆ Before executing a warrant, police must have “taken all available measures to avoid executing the warrant when children under 16 are present.” If children are present, police can’t point firearms at them or handcuff them.
◆ Police would have to “take all available measures to avoid damage” to the home and property in it.
Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) said the botched raid on Young’s home was “one of the most disturbing police blunders and human rights violations” she has seen.
“When the 12 police officers barreled into her home unannounced with their battering ram, it was the last straw in a long history of police misconduct,” Hairston said.
It was also a reminder that “we are Black each and every day, and what we face, no one else faces.”
Lightfoot said she was not consulted before the ordinance was introduced, and that CPD plans to release a revised general order on executing search warrants next week.