Mayor Lori Lightfoot met with Anjanette Young Thursday for a “lengthy, very candid and productive conversation” about the botched 2019 police raid of Young’s home, according to City Hall and the woman’s lawyers.
Lightfoot and Young issued a joint statement late Thursday afternoon on the “unacceptable raid,” saying they had “discussed a number of systemic changes necessary to address the wrongs done not only to Ms. Young but also to other victims.
“We both acknowledge that today’s conversation was but a step towards Ms. Young’s healing,” the statement read. “Today’s conversation was not a resolution to the problematic issues that both parties acknowledge exist — which led to the events of February 21, 2019 at Ms. Young’s home. However, there could be no resolution without first engaging in a substantive conversation.
“We are both committed to continuing to identify areas of common ground relating to these issues and to working towards necessary policy changes together,” Lightfoot and Young said in the statement.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks about the mishandling of the raid of Anjanette Young during a Dec. 17 press conference.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
The meeting, which originally had been called off by Young’s lawyers earlier in the week, came a day after the mayor’s office released a trove of internal emails and police documents that shed new light on the grossly mistaken raid that preceded Lightfoot’s election — and how her staff has handled the aftermath.
Police body camera video originally obtained by CBS2 shows officers force their way into Young’s home. They had the wrong place; they were expecting to find a man they wanted for suspected illegal possession of a handgun. Young, a social worker, had been getting ready for bed and was unclothed when officers entered and handcuffed her. She can be heard on the video telling the officers dozens of times they were in the wrong home.
The raid, and CBS2’s decision to broadcast the body cam footage, put Lightfoot’s administration on the defensive and has already led to high-level changes at City Hall.
Lightfoot initially said she had learned of the raid only earlier this month, but emails released Wednesday include one that shows her staff had told her about the “pretty bad wrongful raid” in November 2019.
The mayor has tapped retired federal Judge Ann Claire Williams to lead an investigation of the fiasco. Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson is launching a separate probe.
