(Update, December 31, 2020) — Although previously maintaining she had not known about the February 2019 botched Chicago Police Department raid of Anjanette Young's home, Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office has released a slew of emails that show the mayor discussing the incident with top city aides prior to the release of bodycam footage.
More than 150 emails show a variety of discussions between Lightfoot, her chief of staff, other top aides and lawyers, NBC Chicago reported. Per the emails, Lightfoot was made aware of the incident in early November 2019 and not when bodycam footage was released as she had previously claimed.
Earlier this month, Lightfoot held on to her claims of not knowing about the incident, even apologizing to Young at a press conference after bodycam footage was aired on local news programs.
“I am deeply sorry and troubled that her home was invaded and that she had to face the humiliation and trauma that she suffered,” Lightfoot said at the press conference. "That is just not right. It simply should not have happened. And I will make sure that there is full accountability for what took place.”
A Nov. 11, 2019 email sent to Lightfoot from former deputy mayor for public safety, Susan Lee, gave an alert of the footage set to be released and details from the raid.
"Mayor please see below for pretty bad wrongful raid coming out tomorrow," Lee's email began.
The Lightfoot administration then sought to halt the release of the video, which Lightfoot alleged occurred without her knowledge.
“I made it very clear to the corporation counsel that I will not be blindsided by issues like this,” Lightfoot said. “Filing a motion against a media outlet to prevent something from being published is something that should rarely, if ever, happen. And had I been advised that this was in the works, I would have stopped it in its tracks. This is not how we operate. Period.”
However, the emails may prove that Lightfoot was a part of the attempts to withhold the bodycam footage from the public.
In a statement released with the emails, the mayor's office states that, "Mayor Lightfoot has been and remains committed to full transparency surrounding the police raid on Anjanette Young’s home and all subsequent actions and activity, as well as identifying all other victims and righting wrongs."
A previously-scheduled meeting between Young and Lightfoot has been canceled by Young’s attorney, Ken Saulter.
"The mayor's apologies without action ring hollow and fall on deaf ears," Saulter wrote in a statement, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
(Original Story, December 28, 2020) — The harrowing video of Chicago police officers mistakenly raiding and rifling through Anjanette Young's home has sparked protests in Chicago on Sunday, with hundreds of Black women showing out to express their outrage about the situation, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
The women were joined at the Chicago Police headquarters protest by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, as well as Reps. Bobby Rush and Danny Davis.
“We just wanted to just say, in our outrage and our anger, ‘Hey girl, we with you.’ That’s what we need. Black women…we’ve always been that foundation, that glue for the family. And so to see us all come together and respond to demand fair justice for another sister… that was great, that’s awesome,” said organizer Mary Russell-Gardner in an interview with the Sun-Times.
Say her name … Anjanette Young. Today I marched with a coalition of women outside of the Chicago Police headquarters to protest the botched raid against a naked black female social worker. She is seen in a video telling officers they had the wrong house. Praying for justice. pic.twitter.com/5zmJ7GEXeb
— Sonya Whitaker (@drsonyawhitaker) December 28, 2020
"We were outraged, just speechless, can’t even fathom what that woman experienced coming into her house naked. So that’s the main reason I’m out here for this Black woman, Miss Anjanette Young, whom I don’t even know, but I felt every pain she felt,” she added.
Exclusive bodycam video from the 2019 raid on Young's home, showed more than seven officers barge into her home heavily armed and screaming, according to footage released by CBS2. Young was in the shower when they broke in. Officers left her handcuffed, naked and dripping wet as the men searched through her things and demanded answers. She was standing naked in front of the men for 15 minutes before a woman officer arrived and took her to her room where she could change.
The officers eventually were forced to apologize because they had the wrong address. The video also showed officers admitting that the warrant may not have gotten official approval from superiors.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has also faced backlash for claiming that she did not know members of her administration were fighting the release of the video in court for months.
Both CBS2 and Young's lawyers filed Freedom Of Information Act requests for the bodycam video of all the officers involved but were denied. Young's lawyer was able to get the video through discovery in her lawsuit against the city over the raid.
She and her lawyer subsequently leaked the video to CBS2, and lawyers for Lightfoot's administration went to court to stop her and CBS2 from publishing the video. They even threatened sanctions against Young for releasing the video to CBS2, something Lightfoot has since demanded her lawyers no longer pursue.
Lightfoot said she knew nothing about the raid, the video, and her administration's attempts to stop its release or sanction Young.
Her comments caused further outrage as many questioned how a situation of this magnitude, which her own officials went to federal court to fight, could have been unknown to her. Lightfoot has since said all of the officers involved in the raid are now on desk duty and added that a long-running Civilian Office of Police Accountability investigation was holding up further efforts to address the situation.
At the recent protest, Rush addressed a crowd of protestors with a speech about the importance of standing by Black women.
“I am here to let you know and inform you that I stand for Black women, my mama was a Black woman, my wife is a Black woman, my daughters are Black women. We will defend Black women, we will place Black women on the pedestal that they deserve. Black women matter,” Rush said.
The hundreds of people who attended the protest, most of whom were Black women, held signs featuring words from Young that were heard in the video like, “They could have shot me,” “It felt like forever,” and “You’ve got the wrong house,” which Young frantically screamed dozens of times during the raid.
Many who attended the protest told the Sun-Times that they wanted the officers fired and demanded more accountability from the police department.
Young and Lightfoot have been communicating about potentially meeting sometime soon and are still working on the details. Rush has also asked House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to hold a hearing about what happened to Young.
“We cannot move forward as a society if we do not firmly commit to protecting Black women and girls. As Black women and girls, we deserve recognition of our humanity and we expect to be respected and safe especially in our own homes,” Lt. Gov. Stratton said at the protest.
