Family Sues Chicago Police After Raid Searching For Relative Who Hadn't Lived There In Years
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago police are facing yet another federal lawsuit over allegations of a bad raid and misconduct by officers.
CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini has been exposing these bad raids for two years, and it just keeps happening. The department continues raiding the wrong homes and pointing guns at children.
Jasmine Vale says moments from the night a team of Chicago police officers wrongly raided her home keep replaying in her mind.
"I was in the back room, and when I came out there was just a bunch of men charging at me," she said.
Video recorded from her security cameras when the raid occurred back in February recorded the sounds of police breaking in. Her 4-year-old daughter was in the arms of her grandma, 70-year-old Khamme Lazar, when it happened. Lazar says they had guns on her.
"Officers then moved closer and trained their guns at point blank range at this grandmother and 4-year-old granddaughter," said attorney Al Hofeld Jr.
The accusations of another innocent family held at gun point during another botched police raid are part of federal lawsuit filed Thursday against the Chicago Police Department by Hofeld. He now represents dozens of children and families whose homes were wrongly raided.
"He told me to get the F on the ground and called me the B word," Vale said.
The CBS 2 Investigators have been exposing these kinds of cases, leaving families terrified and traumatized in the process, for two years.
"One of them had a really big gun, and he held it towards me. And he told to get on the floor, and I just did what he told me to do because I was really scared," Vale said.
No arrests were made, no guns or drugs recovered. She says the man they were looking for, Khamme Lazar's 33-year-old son, hadn't lived in the apartment for years and resides in another state, but the apartment was ransacked and even her daughters toys were broken. Now she says her child is afraid of police.
"I see her locking the front door the back door. I think she's scared that might happen again," Vale said.
The lawsuit also alleges the officers didn't wear body cameras as required during the raid, so the only video they know exists is from Vale's security cameras. Police did not notice those cameras until they finally left.
"I've just been through something so traumatizing, something no parent should feel, and it was the worst thing in the world," Vale said.
A city law department spokesman says they haven't received a copy of the lawsuit yet and cannot comment. CPD has also not released a statement.
As a result of Savini's investigations, since January two uniformed officers with body cameras must be a part of every raid team. The search warrant left behind in this case was supposed to be signed by a supervisor -- a lieutenant or above -- but this one did not have a supervisor's signature.
