Lightfoot meets with Anjanette Young
City inspector general opens probe into raid
Mayor Lori Lightfoot met with Anjanette Young on Thursday and the two had “a lengthy, very candid and productive conversation about the unacceptable raid” on the social worker’s home in which Chicago police handcuffed her naked, according to a joint statement.
Lightfoot and Young also discussed “a number of systemic changes necessary to address the wrongs done not only to Ms. Young, but also to other victims,” said the statement.
The meeting, which was first reported by WBBMCh. 2, came on the same day the city’s inspector general announced an investigation into the matter and after previous talks for a private sit-down between Lightfoot and Young, followed by a public forum, fell through.
A day earlier, the city released 153 pages of emails about the February 2019 raid as Lightfoot continues to deal with what has become a major crisis for the first-term mayor.
“We are both committed to continuing to identify areas of common ground relating to these issues and to working towards necessary policy changes together,” the statement said.
Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, meanwhile, has opened an investigation into the case, he said in an email to aldermen.
Ferguson made the announcement in an email to Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, and other members of the City Council. In the email, Ferguson said his office “has initiated and is proceeding with a formal inquiry into aspects of the search warrant execution at Ms. Young’s home and the handling of its aftermath by City depart-
ments and officials.”
Lightfoot previously said she is supportive of such an effort but also asked former federal Judge Ann Claire Williams to review the case and how it was handled.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is also looking into the Police Department’s handling of the February 2019 raid, but Lightfoot has been critical of the agency for being too slow in completing its investigation. A city spokesman previously said 12 Chicago police officers involved in the botched raid of Young’s home have been placed on desk duty.
In his letter to aldermen, Ferguson also said he’s seeking information about the Williams probe and COPA’s investigation.
Emails released earlier this week show Lightfoot was told in November 2019 about “a pretty bad wrongful raid” in which police handcuffed Young while shewas naked.
Lightfoot initially said she had only learned of the raid, which occurred before she was mayor, earlier this month after WBBM-Ch. 2 aired police body camera footage that showed Young repeatedly telling officers
who barged into her home that they had the wrong place.
Soon after, the mayor acknowledged that members of her staff 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.
“It was literally somebody saying, mayor, here’s another one, (some) words to that effect, I’m paraphrasing, and I said let’s talk about it, let’s get (former chief risk officer Tamika Puckett) involved, and there was a subsequent email from her because I was pushing her on what are we doing, where are we on revising the search warrant protocols, and she gave a detailed update,” Lightfoot previously said, summarizing the exchange.
In an email sent on Nov. 11, 2019, former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Susan Lee forwarded a summary of CBS’ reporting on the case to Lightfoot and said, “please see below for a pretty bad wrongful raid coming out tomorrow.”
The summary said Young was handcuffed by police, and officers “allegedly left her standing for 40 minutes handcuffed and naked while all-male police officers search her apartment.” The email noted that Young had been asking for the body camera footage but hadn’t heard back from police .
Half an hour later, Lightfoot responded to the thread by adding Puckett. Chief of staff Maurice Classen and communications director Michael Crowley also received the email.
“I have a lot of questions about this one,” Lightfoot said. “Canwe do a quick call about it? Is 10:00, i.e. 10 minutes from now possible?”
The controversy erupted earlier this month after Lightfoot’s Law Department attempted to block CBS from airing the body camera footage of Chicago police officers mistakenly raiding Young’s home.
Lightfoot’s office later disclosed that it failed to give Young’s attorney all of the body camera footage of the wrongful police raid on her home, a recurring problem for the city’s Law Department.
The Law Department’s top attorney, Mark Flessner, resigned over the scandal, and two of his high-ranking staffers also left.
Video of Young’s ordeal angered residents and activists. But the Light foot administration also has faced criticism for howit handled the recording and its release.
City lawyers initially filed a request to have Young sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order on the video, though the city later said it only wanted her lawyer sanctioned, before filing paperwork seeking to drop the matter altogether. A federal judge is still weighing whether to cite Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter.