On Monday, the Chicago City Council unanimously agreed to pay Anjanette Young $2.9 million for her encounter with police in 2019.
Young, a 49-year-old, licensed social worker, sued the city and several police officers after she was handcuffed while naked during the execution of a search warrant in the wrong home over two years ago.
Body camera footage of the police encounter shows officers from the Chicago Police Department conducting a no-knock raid at Young’s home. Officers used a battering ram and crowbar to force Young’s door open and enter her home. When police suddenly burst into her apartment without warning, Young is nude.
Young told CBS Chicago that she had just gotten home from work and was undressing when her door was broken in by police.
The body-camera footage, obtained after Young and the local news channel filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for video of the raid, shows her naked, handcuffed, crying, and pleading with officers to explain what is going on. Young insisted at least 42 times that the police had targeted the wrong apartment.
“I was afraid if I did anything wrong, or made any moves, that they would shoot me,” Young told Good Morning America last December. “They had guns pointed at me. I feared for my life that night.”
According to a Civilian Office of Police Accountability report, the actual target of the search warrant had a home address listed at an apartment building across the street from Young’s. The report also stated that neither Young nor her home were connected to the target or any other criminal activity.
Officers left Young naked for almost 10 minutes before allowing her to put clothes on. They then held her in handcuffs for 10 more minutes before accepting that she had no connection to the target of the search warrant, the report said.
The report also recommended several Chicago police officers face suspension or termination for their role in the botched raid.
In February, Young filed a lawsuit against the city and 12 police officers. The suit claimed that police officials failed to independently investigate and verify the place to be searched.
According to a 2016 Associated Press analysis, Chicago has paid out about $662 million in police misconduct cases since 2004.
