Aldermen To Consider Settlements In CPD Wrong Raid From 2017, Fatal Police Shooting In 2015
CHICAGO (CBS) -- City attorneys are seeking to settle two more lawsuits accusing Chicago police officers of misconduct, including another case of officers raiding the wrong home.
The City Council Finance Committee will consider the two proposed settlements at its next meeting on Monday.
The first case involves an incident on March 23, 2017, when police broke through Ashanti Franklin's apartment door at 6 a.m., guns drawn, looking for someone who didn't live there.
Police later learned they had entered the wrong apartment. The suspect they were looking for was found in another apartment in the same building on the 2700 block of West Flournoy Avenue, and was arrested on a gun charge.
At the time, police apologized to Franklin and her family, and promised to pay for repairs to their door. Police said the raid was made in error, because the warrant contained the incorrect address information for the suspect.
Franklin later filed a federal lawsuit, accusing the officers who broke into the family's apartment of verbally abusing, threatening, and assaulting her, her husband, and their two children.
The lawsuit claims officers ordered her 12-year-old son out of his bed at gunpoint, made racist and threatening remarks to the family, and threatened to shoot one of them if they didn't stop asking questions.
Franklin's lawsuit says the family repeatedly told officers they had the wrong apartment, and Franklin's husband demanded to see the warrant and requested the officers' names and badge numbers, only to be told to "Shut the f*** up, bro."
"Mr. Franklin responded by saying, 'I'm a man, respect me.' The same defendant responded, 'Shut the f*** up. You see six White dudes outside your door, you should've known to open the door.' Mrs. Franklin told him, 'Just because you're White, it doesn't make you right,'" the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit claims the officers' conduct was caused by the city's "embrace of a racist custom, policy and/or practice regarding police interaction with Black residents."
"Chicago police officers can feel comfortable inflicting excessive brutality and constitutional violations against Black citizens, without fear of retribution," the lawsuit states.
The city is seeking to settle the Franklin family's lawsuit for $175,000.
The second case being considered by the Finance Committee is a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Pamela Anderson, whose 33-year-old mentally ill son, James Anderson, was shot and killed by police in September 2015. The city released 911 tapes from the shooting months later.
Pamela Anderson had called 911 several times to report her James was acting in a threatening manner, and needed to be taken to the hospital for psychiatric care.
When asked by a dispatcher if her son had a weapon, Pamela Anderson said he had a box cutter.
"It's in his pocket but he's not going to use it, you know, you don't have to come in with no guns or nothing. They just need to get him out of here," she said.
Here's how the call went out to officers: "Pamela Anderson said her son James Anderson, 34 years old, has a history of mental illness. He threatened her. He has a box cutter in his pocket."
Within minutes, there was a call of "shots fired by police – one down."
Police reports say an officer fired five shots, hitting James Anderson in the chest, both arms and his right leg.
Police say James Anderson lunged at officers with a "knifelike" object in his hand. Officers say they tried to subdue him with a Taser, but he continued to come toward them in a threatening manner.
Pamela Anderson talked with CBS 2 the day after the fatal shooting and disputed police accounts that officers used a Taser on her son before shooting him.
"I wanted help for him, not to be burying him," she said.
The city is seeking to settle Anderson's lawsuit for $400,000.
If approved by the Finance Committee, both settlements would be sent to the full City Council for consideration on Wednesday.