Amid Fallout Over Anjanette Young Incident, Attorney Says It's 'Beyond Disappointing' That City Hasn't Responded To CPD Consent Decree Enforcement Action
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It has been nearly two years since the botched police raid in which Anjanette Young was handcuffed naked in her home, and more than 13 months since the CBS 2 Investigators first reported on the injustice she suffered.
The officers involved have been taken off the streets. But as CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported Monday, the city's Law Department has not responded to a 14-page enforcement action sent to the city more than four months ago by a group of lawyers instrumental in the Chicago Police Department consent decree - demanding an end to the pattern that we had documented of "abusive" search warrant tactics.
The officers in involved in the Young raid will continue to get paid – they have not been suspended. They will be paid about $4,300 a day, by our calculations, to sit at a desk rather than patrol the streets.
But police Supt. David Brown has ordered all of them be taken off the street and placed on desk duty pending an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
However, we've been waiting on the results of that investigation for more than a year.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot again apologized to the CBS 2 Investigators after the Law Department took us to court to try to stop us from airing the video of the raid in which Young was handcuffed naked.
"Never should have happened, and will never happen again," Mayor Lightfoot said. "I would never have authorized such a wrongheaded motion to be filed."
That led to the resignation of her of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner over the weekend. Hickey asked Mayor Lightfoot how involved she was in Flessner's resignation.
"Well, he reported and worked for me," the mayor said. "I saw it and received his resignation yesterday."
WATCH: My Name Is Anjanette Young: A CBS 2 Special Presentation
But what about that enforcement action from the lawyers involved in the consent decree? Hickey asked Lightfoot if the Law Department is planning to issue a response in the near future.
"There is, as I said, a very specific prescribed way in under the terms of the consent decree, and that is the process that we were following," Mayor Lightfoot said.
But on Monday, Craig Futterman, one of the attorneys who drafted the letter, said this matter is urgent and should have been handled by now.
"We raised these issues with the city. That's why we raised them back in August, and yes, it is beyond disappointing," said Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago. "Doesn't even do justice to how we feel about where we are still waiting the city to respond now - not 90 days later, not even 120 days later."
Futterman said they reached out to the city again on Friday. They would like to give the city the opportunity to respond and the opportunity to meet and discuss the issues outlined in that letter.
If not, the next step would be to bring the matter before a federal judge.
There is also the question of an outside investigation into this matter. Mayor Lightfoot was asked about hiring a former judge to investigate Young the incident, and she said there would be an announcement on that in the coming days.
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