Lori Lightfoot attempted to block release of police handcuffing naked woman
'That was not something that happened on my watch,' the mayor said during a press conference.
Anjanette Young was the victim of a police raid where officers handcuffed her naked in her Chicago home. Officials attempted to stop the video evidence from becoming public.
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According to HuffPost, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made efforts to prevent the bodycam footage from the mishandled raid from being released. The outlet reported the mayor’s legal team filed an emergency motion and accused Young of breaking a confidentiality order for sharing the footage with news outlets, claiming “an inaccurate picture of what happened during the subject search warrant.”
“In open court, Defense Counsel specifically outlined concerns that this video would be shared with the media in a salacious and unfair manner designed to elicit a reactionary response, which carries the risk of poisoning the public’s view of the case,” Lightfoot’s lawyers presented in the filing HuffPost reported.
theGrio reported Young was able to obtain the bodycam footage from officers involved in the raid through a court order. In the video, she is seen naked, surrounded by police with their weapons drawn, begging for them to allow her to call for help.
She repeatedly informed cops they were at the wrong address.
“I can just remember crying and yelling, ‘Please let me put my clothes on…you have the wrong place,” Young said. “I can see it all over again…I can see them walking around my house and feeling like, feeling humiliated.”
“Before I knew it, there was a swarm of police officers,” she said according to the report. “They had these big guns, long guns with scopes and lights… I thought they were going to shoot me.”
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On Tuesday, during a press conference regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and Chicago, a reporter took the opportunity to ask the mayor about the traumatizing incident. HuffPost reported a journalist in attendance asked Lightfoot why her office attempted to block the bodycam footage.
“That was not something that happened on my watch,” the mayor responded according to the article. “Because of the concern that we saw and was expressed, we changed the protocols for search warrants. It requires now two supervisors, it requires a pre-check of the location. And I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that we’ve solved every problem.”
“I watched that video and I put myself in that poor woman’s place and thinking about somebody breaking into your home … and the trauma that that causes,” Lightfoot continued.
According to CBS Chicago, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) did not investigate the raid until they broke the story. Keenan Saulter, Young’s attorney, said he believes mishandled raids are violating constitutional rights. The news outlet uncovered multiple families with similar stories.
“If this had been a young woman in Lincoln Park by herself in her home naked, a young white woman — let’s just be frank – if the reaction would have been the same? I don’t think it would have been,” Saulter said to CBS. “I think [officers] would have saw that woman, rightfully so, as someone who was vulnerable, someone who deserved protection, someone who deserved to have their dignity maintained. They viewed Ms. Young as less than human.”
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