Too Many Secrets Allow Chicago's Misdeeds To Keep Festering

CHICAGO — We live in a city that keeps too many government-sanctioned secrets that restrict victims of problematic policing from access to taxpayer-funded proof of mistakes and misconduct that disrupt and destroy lives.

City Hall didn't want us to see the body camera video of cops who, in February 2019, busted down the wrong door while executing a search warrant, drew weapons including an assault rifle, and handcuffed an unsuspecting and unarmed naked woman who wasn't wanted for a crime.

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Anjanette Young was terrified when a flood of police officers filled her condominium looking for a man who never lived there.

No shots were fired. Young survived, unlike health care worker Breonna Taylor, whom police shot and killed during a similar botched police raid in Louisville, Kentucky, in March — which immediately came to mind when I heard Young's story.

Young wasn't the only fortunate one for a lack of gunfire. Because cops didn't pull triggers that night, city lawyers could rely on government-allowed secrecy to better defend taxpayers against the federal civil lawsuit Young filed.

If a Chicago cop fired a shot that night, city officials would've been forced to release body camera video in two or three months under a policy put in place by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel to give the appearance of transparency after his administration got criticized covering up video showing an officer fire every bullet in his gun — 16 shots — at Laquan McDonald until the Black teenager was dead.

Chicagoans would have known sooner about troubling deficiencies in the police department's policy on executing the kind of "no-knock" search warrant that led to the shooting death of Taylor in Louisville.

Since that policy doesn't pertain to non-shooting incidents, city lawyers can make an overly broad claim video evidence should be secret as an allowed exemption in Illinois' Freedom of Information Act related to "ongoing investigations." For that, city lawyers even denied Young's own public records request for a copy of the video showing her stark naked and pleading with police — 43 times — to believe her when she said they raided the wrong condominium.

Young's attorneys finally received copies of the video as part of a federal lawsuit against the city, with a court-ordered caveat to keep the video secret that ultimately didn't stick.

CBS 2 Chicago investigative reporter Dave Savini uncovered a copy of the video this week, and city lawyers made a failed attempt to get a judge to block him from broadcasting the disturbing images on the 10 o'clock news.

The city's lawyers said their objection was "based on their belief" Savini was given the body camera video to "paint an inaccurate picture of what happened during the subject search warrant," after "there has already been a highly inaccurate and misleading story" broadcast about the botched raid, according to court papers.

A judge disagreed, and Savini's report gave us a look at policing gone wrong in Chicago that current state laws, city policies and court-ordered confidentiality stipulations say the public shouldn't be allowed to see.

If you haven't watched the video, you should. Imagine what transpired from Young's perspective, naked and afraid as men with guns storm your modest home without warning.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she had a "very emotional reaction" while watching the video for the first time Tuesday. Seeing that video immediately got a reaction from Lightfoot, who directed city lawyers to settle any pending case related to the late-night raid of Young's house.

"If we've messed up, we've got to fess up and clean it up," the mayor said Tuesday.

Lightfoot reminded reporters that she ordered up new rules that require the police department to take extra steps to verify the correct location. Changes to police procedure were needed, but not good enough. Not even close.

What needs to change is the unchecked authority for City Hall attorneys to cling to the status quo precedent of going to extensive lengths to hide behind public records exemptions that keep videos like those of the wrongful raid on Young's home from public view.

The City Hall law department has a long history of erring on the side of secrecy.

There's no better example than negotiations by former Mayor Emanuel's city attorney Steve Patton's to keep video of McDonald's murder secret that included City Council testimony on a $5 million settlement that aldermen, in hindsight, called intentionally misleading.

MORE ON PATCH: Ready To 'Move On' After Laquan McDonald? Not So Fast, Chicago

After a judge ordered the city to release video of McDonald's murder in 2015, Emanuel's administration held secret meetings to make sure everybody — top police brass, members of the Independent Police Review Authority, the independent agency charged with investigating police misconduct, and Lightfoot, who then was president of the Chicago Police Board — had their story straight, before being grilled by the City Council.

As mayor, Lightfoot's law department's effort this week to keep video of the disturbing raid on Young's home secret reeks of shady efforts to hide scandalous truths about policing that city lawyers have practiced for generations to protect a corrupt status quo — the Chicago Way.

Young's attorney, Keenan Saulter, reminded the mayor of that Wednesday.

"The audacity of the corporation counsel's office — after everything that's occurred in 2020, on the heels of Breonna Taylor being murdered in her home in a very eerily similar circumstance — how can you justify that your response is, 'Don't tell the public.'" Saulter said at a news conference outside police headquarters. "That is unacceptable. We can't stand for that. That's not justice. That's not righteousness. And that's not the kind of administration Mayor Lightfoot said she wanted to run."

A few hours later, the mayor of Chicago apologized.

Her voice hoarse from a private screaming session, Lightfoot publicly lambasted city attorneys for going so far as to seek a court order to stop a news outlet from broadcasting body cam video.

"Had I been advised this was in the works, I would have stopped it in its tracks," she said. "This is not how we operate, period."

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The mayor pledged to change the policy on releasing police videos that she helped draft before resigning from Emanuel's Police Accountability Task Force to run for mayor. "It's clear to me, as it has been for some time, that changes need to be made," she said. "And those changes will be made."

Anything short of complete transparency won't be the change Chicagoans deserve, Saulter said.

"Release all the videos," he said. "Shine the bright light of the public on what the police are doing."

People living in a city with too many secrets have suffered enough.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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