DOLLARS & SETTLEMENTS
City close to deal with Anjanette Young over botched 2019 CPD raid
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is close enough to a settlement with the victim of a botched police raid to put it on the agenda for Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, but nobody is saying how much money Anjanette Young will receive.
Four settlements are listed on the Finance Committee agenda. Three of them include the amount of money proposed for the plaintiff; the only exception is Anjanette Young v. City of Chicago.
During closed-door briefings on Thursday, alderpersons were told there would likely be a “second briefing” on Sunday afternoon or early Monday to outline the terms of the settlement.
Young’s attorney Keenan Saulter could not be reached for comment. The mayor’s office released a statement: “It is our expectation that on Monday, the Finance Committee will be presented with a proposed settlement for consideration regarding Ms. Young. Out of deference to that process, we will not be commenting further.”
Young, a social worker, was in her Near West Side home the night of Feb. 21, 2019, when several Chicago police officers entered, announcing a raid. Young, who was undressed and getting ready for bed at the time, was forced to remain naked in front of the officers for 40 minutes as the ordeal unfolded.
In June, Alds. Ray Lopez (15th) and Jeanette Taylor (20th) used a parliamentary maneuver to delay Lightfoot’s appointment of Celia Meza as corporation counsel in protest of the Law Department’s treatment of Young. Meza filed a motion to dismiss Young’s lawsuit against the city after Young rejected what her attorneys viewed as a “low-ball” offer to settle for $1 million.
Taylor said Friday no amount of money would be enough to compensate Young for “what she ultimately has lost. … her dignity and her pride — her trust in the people who are supposed to serve and protect. Her [resulting] distrust for [people in] government who dragged this along.”
Likewise, Taylor said the year-end settlement with Young will not erase the political “stain” for Lightfoot.
Lopez, one of Lightfoot’s most outspoken City Council critics, argued the mayor has political motives for racing to settle the case.
“This is a black mark on her reputation. It’s a black mark on her leadership — particularly running against Rahm Emanuel and decrying his quote-unquote cover up of Laquan McDonald and then, in turn, having her own cover up just six months after taking office,” Lopez said.
Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), the former Chicago Police officer now chairing the Committee on Public Safety, denied the settlement “has anything to do with” Lightfoot preparing to seek a second term.
“It has everything to do with righting a wrong and making sure that Ms. Anjanette Young is made whole to some degree,” Taliaferro said.
Lightfoot has been under fire for her changing story about what she knew and when she knew it about the botched raid.
The mayor has met with Young, who told officers more than 40 times they had the wrong house as she stood naked, and personally apologized for having been “denied her basic dignity as a human being.”
Lightfoot initially insisted she knew nothing about the raid until WBBM-TV (Channel 2) aired the video in December 2020.
But after reviewing internal emails, the mayor admitted she learned about the raid in November 2019 when a top aide warned Lightfoot about a “pretty bad wrongful raid” by Chicago police.
The mayor emphatically denied knowing anything about her Law Department’s efforts to block CBS2 from airing bodycam video of the raid. She forced the resignation of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, a longtime friend who served with Lightfoot in the U.S. attorney’s office.