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The Chicago City Council voted Wednesday to approve a $2.9 million settlement with Anjanette Young, a Black woman police handcuffed while naked during a wrongful raid on her home in 2019.
She’s among a long list of victims who have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the Chicago Police Department.
“No amount of money could erase what Ms. Young has suffered,” her lawyers said in a statement. “No amount of money could provide Ms. Young with what she truly wants — which is to never have been placed in this situation in the first place.”
Video captured by an officer's body camera showed Young, a social worker, tearfully pleading with police after they took a battering ram to her door and stormed into her house with guns drawn.
Young had to sue the city’s police department to even gain access to the unsettling footage of the raid, which the department initially tried to withhold.
“You have the wrong place!” Young can be heard yelling several times during the ordeal. But her pleas did no good: Police left her naked with only a blanket draped over her for several minutes before finally allowing her to put clothes on, according to a report from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
That report said Officer Alain Aporongao was “the most culpable for the harm” that Young experienced. The report said Aporongao obtained a search warrant to investigate a home across the street from Young’s, but he relied on a faulty tip to search Young’s home instead. The report called for him and two sergeants to face suspension and possible termination from the department.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has recommended terminating one of the sergeants, Alex Wolinski.
For her suffering, Young deserves the settlement she’s received. But Chicago has paid out hefty settlements for police misconduct in the past. That Young’s ordeal even occurred is a sign that police don’t see the settlements as a deterrent to their terrorizing behavior.
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