Black woman handcuffed naked during raid at wrong home set to get $2.9M from Chicago

The Chicago City Council is set to vote on a $2.9 million settlement for Anjanette Young, a Black woman who sued the city and several police officers over a botched 2019 raid at her apartment.

Young, a social worker, was handcuffed while she was naked during the encounter. She sobbed and told officers that they were at the wrong home but she remained in handcuffs, according to a Civilian Office of Police Accountability report.

The City Council’s Finance Committee unanimously approved the settlement for Young on Monday, according to the Chicago Tribune. It will move on to the full council’s agenda for a vote on Wednesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was “comfortable” with the settlement, the newspaper reported.

“I think it’s a good thing this matter is resolved,” she said at an unrelated news conference on Monday.

The mayor’s office and an attorney for Young could not immediately be reached on Tuesday.

Young’s first-floor apartment was raided in February 2019 after Officer Alain Aporongao obtained a search warrant using information from an anonymous source. The source told Aporongao that an acquaintance had brandished an illegal weapon at a home, the report stated.

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The target of the search warrant had previously been arrested and had a home address listed at an apartment building across the street and slightly south of Young, according to the report.

It said that the officer had information listing the target’s address but “disregarded all of this information and instead relied exclusively on J. Doe’s statements.”

Neither Young nor her home were connected to the target or any other criminal activity, the police accountability office said.

Body camera footage showed officers placing Young under arrest while she was naked. When she asked to see their warrant, she was ignored and was instead questioned about the target. She told police that she did not know the target, according to the report.

During the raid, officers covered up Young in a blanket before a female officer eventually escorted her to a bedroom so she could get dressed.

The police accountability office said officers realized about a minute after entering the apartment that the target was not present and was not associated with Young’s address — but she remained handcuffed for about 17 minutes.

The report said many of the involved officers “violated applicable laws and policies” and recommended various disciplinary actions.

Police Superintendent David Brown later called for Sgt. Alex Wolinski to be fired, saying in documents released by the city that the sergeant approved the warrant without adhering to the department’s “Knock and Announce” rule, failed to intervene in the “disrespectful treatment” of Young and did not promptly present Young with a copy of the search warrant.