Chicago Mayor Lightfoot was told by staff in November 2019 that errant raid was ‘pretty bad’

CHICAGO — A top aide to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told her the botched raid on Anjanette Young’s home, in which Chicago police handcuffed the social worker naked, was “pretty bad” in November 2019, newly released emails show.

In an email sent on Nov. 11, 2019, former deputy mayor for public safety Susan Lee forwarded a summary of WBBM-Ch. 2′s 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 chief risk officer Tamika 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. “Can we do a quick call about it? Is 10:00, ie 10 minutes from now possible?”

A day later, Puckett emailed Lightfoot, Classen and Lee with an update on the city’s reforms to search warrants, including increased training for cops who have applied for search warrants twice or more within the past 18 months.

“We need to escalate the training for the 2+ search warrant affiants,” Lightfoot responded. “We cannot afford any additional hits.”

The mistaken raid on Young’s home in February 2019 has become a major crisis for Lightfoot, who initially said she had only learned of it earlier this month after CBS aired police body camera footage that showed Young, who was naked and handcuffed, repeatedly telling officers who barged into her home that they had the wrong place.

Lightfoot later acknowledged that members of her staff told her about the raid via emails in November 2019, as CBS was reporting on search warrants being served at the wrong addresses, though her office took nearly two weeks to do so. 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.

Newly released emails also show that city officials planned to release the body worn camera footage of the incident to Young, but the Chicago Police Department decided not to after officials with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability said it would impede their investigation on the incident.

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.

In response to the controversy, several aldermen requested an investigation by city inspector general Joe Ferguson. Lightfoot said she is supportive of such an effort but also asked former federal Judge Ann Claire Williams to review the case and its handling.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is looking into the Police Department’s handling of the 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.

Video of Young’s ordeal angered residents and activists. But the Lightfoot administration also has faced criticism for how it 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 rejected the Lightfoot administration’s unusual request to prevent a television station from airing a news report. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

Lightfoot has criticized the Law Department for taking the action and denied knowing about it beforehand.

The mayor also angrily disputed that the city declined to give Young a copy of the video in her incident before later acknowledging she was wrong.

Lightfoot’s email release so far is limited to the events leading up to, and following, Lee’s email notifying the mayor about the raid.

But the emails also offer a window into how Lightfoot officials managed a situation that would later become a national scandal.

On Nov. 8, 2019, deputy press secretary Patrick Mullane emailed Puckett, top Lightfoot press aides, and the police department’s spokesman with a summary of the incident provided by CBS that said Young was handcuffed while naked. He also asked a CBS producer when the FOIA requested was filed by Young.

Days later, on Nov. 11, the city’s prosecutor, Natalia Delgado, sent Mullane and other media officials a denial of CBS’s FOIA request and said there are people watching the videos without identifying them. “They are currently working on reviewing and redacting the video to be released to the subject,” Delgado said.

Pete Edwards, the commanding officer of the police department’s FOIA section, said he would work on getting the video “completed” for release by Nov. 12.

Also included in the emails is a note from Fred Waller, the former chief of operations, to then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson and City Hall officials telling them that no evidence was recovered from the raid. The email noted “Ms. Anjanette Young” was on scene but doesn’t say anything about how she was treated.

On Nov. 18, Edwards said the video already had already been redacted as he forwarded an email from COPA asking for the videos to be withheld because of their ongoing investigation.

Jason Szczepanski from COPA told Edwards and other FOIA officials that the case is under investigation and the file is exempt from release because it would interfere with their investigation.

Delgado emailed Mullane and other Lightfoot media workers to tell them COPA said release of the videos would “impede” their investigation. No one appears to challenge the rationale.

On Dec. 3, 2019, Lightfoot forwarded a CBS story to herself headlined “Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul Calls Wrong Raids By Chicago Police ‘Disturbing.’”

She then sent it to Puckett, Flessner, Lee and Classen to ask for an update on a new protocol for the execution of search warrants. Puckett responded with a series of possible reforms.

On Jan. 13, Mullane reached out to Puckett and other officials to talk about media strategies for rolling out the department’s new search warrant policies. Days later, Mullane emailed Puckett and said they’re thinking about giving the news to CBS, “preferably later in the week when (Lightfoot) is in D.C.”

Then, in February, police spokeswoman Margaret Huynh emailed Chicago police leaders to note CBS would soon air a story with the interview.

“So much for them forgetting about it,” wrote back Michele Morris, the department’s director of risk management.