But there are those who accuse him of scapegoat and hypocrisy.
Twenty-four hours after claiming she only heard of Anjenette Young’s case on Tuesday, Mayor Lightfoot admitted she didn’t remember the case until she saw the video for the first time this week and reviewed the emails.
“I don’t have any specific memories of it,” Lightfoot said. “It was in November when I probably focused on budget issues and getting our budget passed to the city council.”
WATCH: The mayor of Chicago gets excited as he discusses an incorrect raid video
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city cannot let what happened to Young happen again in February 2019, when police who had the wrong address stormed the social worker’s home. The Chicago woman was terrified and humiliated, handcuffed while naked before police finally allowed her to cover up.
“I have an obligation to do it wrong,” Lightfoot said Thursday, feeling emotional. “It’s been painful, painful and annoying.”
The bodycam video shows six seconds elapsing between the first knock on Young’s door and Chicago police officers using a battering ram to force their way into his apartment.
WATCH: Bodycam video illuminates failed CPD raids
“According to Supreme Court jurisprudence, the reasonable amount to wait is 15 to 20 seconds,” lawyer Al Hofeld said. “What we find over and over again in these cases, even when it’s not a no-touch order, however they don’t call and advertise.
When Young tried to convince CPD that they had the wrong address, an officer – with a search warrant in hand – seemed to realize that it was true quite quickly, even as police continued to prosecute his home.
Young was given the reason why the agents were in his apartment, wrong or not.
“If this was your mother, how would you like to be treated?” Said Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown. “You don’t form that in academia. We hire people who we think know good from evil. And if they don’t know good from evil, they don’t need to be police officers.”
While Supt. Brown on Thursday announced a review of all search warrants, saying the changes applied only to non-touch warrants, according to defense attorneys, represent a very small portion of all those signed by judges.
“We need to ensure that this never happens again with reforms, policy procedures and accountability for the mistake,” Brown said.
John Catanzara, Jr., head of the Chicago Police Fraternal Order, said police are being atoned for.
“Oh, there’s no doubt he’s trying to divert the problem from the fact that he was part of a cover-up,” Catanzara said. “The same furious and delusional thing he did about Rahm Emanuel is the same that he is equally guilty of.”
INTERVIEW: Lightfoot promises to regain confidence after a failed CPD raid
The mayor said she wants to speak in person with Young and has addressed her lawyer. Young’s case and the city’s attempt to prevent the video from being released prompted the mayor to push for change and order the release of the entire video of her case.
In the future, victims seeking information about the case will get it quickly, including the video, the mayor said. The Law Department will review all pending cases of search warrants, he said. The video posting policy will be reviewed and the mayor wants the posting deadline to be shortened.
Assaulting on the wrong directions has cost the city a lot of money in legal expenses settlements and goodwill.
Hofeld currently represents ten clients whose homes have been raided by police where no evidence was arrested or confiscated. They include Sharon Lyons, who in February had agents taken to her Back of the Yards apartment, pointing guns at herself, her autistic son and four-year-old granddaughter.
“They knocked on the door, the panel fell off the side of the wall, they had guns in their face, all in my son’s face,” Lyons said.
This order was executed a month after the city implemented reforms in the search order process, both to prevent unwarranted raids and to protect children who might be at home. It is said that they are now only approved when there is danger to life and safety.
“The new policy is too cosmetic and needs to be further specified,” Hofeld said. “Evidence they confiscate will not be expelled from the criminal court, it will not be excluded if they do not call and advertise. Therefore, they do not care … some kind of direct consequence for them personally, such as direct discipline.”
Critics call this case Laquan McDonald of Lightfoot.
“We demand an immediate push and the approval of the civilian police responsibility council elected by all civilians, that there be a mechanism outside of City Hall,” said Aislinn Pulley, with Black Lives Matter Chicago.
“There’s no trust, there’s just no trust in her,” 20th Ward Ald said. Jeanette Taylor. “I have components that say I said it didn’t turn out to be what I thought it would be, and I have the same feelings.”
The mayor on Thursday ordered a top-down review of the case.
“There’s a lot of confidence that has been broken,” Lightfoot said. “I know there is a lot of trust in me, which has been broken. And I have a responsibility to rebuild that trust 37 of responsibility that builds the trust of our city from our police department and the whole government.”
RELATED: Bodycam video posted on Walter Wallace Jr. shooting, Philadelphia agents involved identified
The mayor was asked if she is considering staff changes in the city’s law department, which fought against the release of the video. He said he is still reviewing what happened.
Copyright © 2020 WLS-TV. All rights reserved.