5 years later, multiple Chicago cops will likely be suspended for wrong raid on innocent family
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Several Chicago Police officers and supervisors should be suspended for their roles in a wrongful raid on the home of an innocent family in 2017, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) says.
The agency released the findings of its probe Tuesday after it spent years investigating how police handled the raid at the home of then 9-year-old Peter Mendez, his 5-year-old brother Jack and their parents.
"I'm grateful that they are finally getting disciplined," said Peter, who is now a freshman in high school. "But in my opinion, it should have happened sooner."
It all started in November of 2017 when a confidential informant, or "J. Doe," told police drugs were being sold in the second floor apartment, on the 2300 block of S. Damen Ave. But CBS 2's investigation found Officer Joseph Cappello failed to follow department policy and independently verify the address the informant gave him was correct. It wasn't.
Despite this, police supervisors, a state's attorney and a judge signed off on a search warrant that listed an incorrect unit number. With that warrant in hand, at 6:45 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2017, Cappello and a team of several officers rammed down the family's door and burst in.
In interviews with CBS 2, and during a deposition as part of his family's lawsuit against the city, Peter said officers pointed guns at him and Jack.
"Get on the f****** ground," an officer yelled at Peter's father, Gilbert, body camera video obtained by CBS 2 shows.
Peter, who was 9 at the time, and his younger brother were afraid. They can be heard crying and screaming as officers brought Gilbert out of the kitchen, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him in front of his family.
"One guy said, 'You better shut the F up if you know any better,'" Peter said in a 2018 interview.
The video also shows officers did not immediately give the family a copy of the search warrant. Peter's mother, Hester, saw the warrant on a table and grabbed it. She read the name of the suspect on the piece of paper and repeatedly told the officers that person lived in the upstairs unit – not theirs.
The family said they are traumatized from that night, and Peter is suffering from symptoms of PTSD as a result. They are among dozens of victims of wrongful raids by Chicago Police officers CBS 2 uncovered as part of its years-long investigation.
"I think the Chicago Police Department needs to be held accountable," Hester said. "They came in and tore our home up. They tore our lives upside down, and we've never been the same."
After the raid, the family's attorney, Al Hofeld, Jr., said "there is zero priority put on officers avoiding the unnecessary use of force when kids are around."
"Just not even on the radar," he said.
Policy Violations
In interviews with COPA investigators, Cappello said this was the first warrant he obtained as a Chicago Police officer. Aside from driving the informant to the address and searching some records, he acknowledged he never independently confirmed whether the address the informant gave him was accurate.
Cappello was also deposed in 2019 as part of the Mendez family's lawsuit against police. He said he didn't have access to, or wasn't aware of, additional resources that could have helped him conduct more surveillance and research ahead of the raid.
In its report, COPA recommended Cappello be suspended 30 days, in part for "failing to adequately verify and corroborate the information provided by J. Doe prior to acquiring and/or executing" the search warrant.
COPA Report on Mendez family raid by Todd Feurer on Scribd
The agency also recommended Cappello's supervisor, Sgt. Russell Egan, be suspended for 60 days – the most of all the officers involved – because he "bears the most responsibility for this incident and the resulting trauma to the Mendez family."
"He failed to provide meaningful and effective supervision to Officer Cappello during the search warrant investigation," the report said. "And he allowed the warrant application to proceed, despite the fact that he knew or should have known that Officer Cappello had not adequately corroborated J. Doe's information."
COPA recommended suspensions for five others, including 30 days for Lt. Samuel Dari. The lieutenant is another supervisor who should have made sure Cappello verified the informant's tip before approving the warrant application but did not.
The agency also said Officer Michael Donnelly should be suspended for five days for failing to knock and announce before "prematurely" breaching the door to the Mendez home, COPA said.
That was another overarching violation highlighted in the report: on the night of the raid, every member of the raid team broke department rules that say officers must knock and announce themselves. COPA said the officers didn't give the Mendez family any time to answer the door before bursting in.
"…The members did not knock and failed to provide the Mendez family a reasonable opportunity to answer the door," the report said. "As a result, they caused unnecessary property damage to both of the building's exterior doors, as well as the Mendez family's apartment door."
Questions Remain
While COPA made strong findings about some of the accusations by the Mendez family, the agency said it would not recommend discipline on others. Some of these allegations were key issues uncovered in CBS 2's reporting about the incident.
For example, in interviews and his deposition, Peter said multiple officers, including Cappello, pointed guns at him. In the moment, he feared officers would shoot him or his family members.
"My life flashed before my eyes," Peter said after the raid in 2018.
But the officers denied pointing guns at anyone in the home, COPA said. In interviews with the agency, most of the officers claimed their guns were unholstered, which COPA said is "reasonable" during the execution of a search warrant, according to the report. Cappello told COPA he kept his gun in the "low ready" position.
Officers are also required to wear and activate their body cameras during the execution of a search warrant. But three members of the raid team violated the department's body camera policy when they raided the Mendez family's home. Officer Michael Guzman began recording after the raid started. Egan and Cappello didn't record any of the raid at all.
In part, COPA said the missing video prevented the agency from determining whether some officers pointed guns at the family.
"Because there is not enough evidence to find that Office Cappello did not point his firearm at any members of the Mendez family, the allegation is not sustained," COPA wrote.
Officers' failure to properly use their body cameras was the crux of a year-long CBS 2 investigation called "Left in the Dark." The reporting found what happened in the Mendez home wasn't rare – there are thousands of other times that officers didn't have video evidence from interactions with residents, many of which they should have, according to department policy.
"My dad told me, it's my word against theirs, but there's the truth which is the right truth," Peter said. "And that's my truth."
But the body camera video that does exist from the raid on the Mendez home raised several red flags about how the officers acted after they realized they were in the wrong place.
"He gave us the wrong f****** apartment," Guzman is heard saying in the video.
CBS 2's review of various angles of the video show officers continued to search after that comment was made. This issue was raised in CBS 2's documentary "[un]warranted."
"At this point, they know they've got no legal basis for being in that apartment," Sheila Bedi said in a previous interview.
Bedi, a Northwestern University law professor, was integral to the police department's consent decree negotiations. She previously watched the video of officers raiding the Mendez family home.
"I imagine that they were hoping to find something that would allow them to have some sort of justification for continuing the search," she said.
But in its report, COPA said "it was reasonable" for the officers "to perform a cursory search of the whole apartment and a more focused search in the master bedroom" to rule out whether the Mendez family was associated with the person officers were looking for. The agency said they did not continue the search after Hester, Peter's mother, told them the suspect lived upstairs.
Accountability
Still, COPA's recommendations to suspend the officers involved could be the first signs of accountability in connection with the raid. The release of the report means police Supt. David Brown already reviewed COPA's findings and approved the discipline.
The 2017 incident propelled CBS 2's years-long investigation into a troubling pattern of bad raids by the Chicago Police. Since first reporting on the raid in 2018, CBS 2 has uncovered dozens more residents, all Black or Latino, who were victims of similar raids, including Anjanette Young.
The innocent Black social worker was unclothed when officers wrongly raided her home in February of 2019. COPA recommended suspension or termination for some of the officers and supervisors who were part of that raid. That includes Donnelly, who was also part of the team that raided the Mendez family's home.
Young previously said CBS 2's reporting on the Mendez family inspired her to come forward with her story. Their stories and others spurred reforms city and statewide. In 2019, a state law was passed in Peter's name. It requires police training for responding to incidents where children are present.
Months after CBS 2 aired the damning body camera video from the raid on Young's home, Brown and Mayor Lori Lightfoot were pressured to pass stricter search warrant reforms in March of 2021. Lightfoot also created an executive order so victims of police abuse can more easily obtain body camera video and other documents outside of the Freedom of Information Act process.
In addition, the police department will now be held accountable for search warrant reforms under the federal consent decree.
Young and some aldermen, however, believe the Lightfoot administration's reforms lack teeth and instead pushed for the passing of the "Anjanette Young Ordinance" (which recently hit a roadblock in the Public Safety Committee).
And more recently, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office announced new search warrant reforms after CBS 2 found dozens of instances where prosecutors signed off on bad warrants from Chicago Police officers.
Despite these reforms, the Mendez case underscores the length it can take for officers to be investigated or held accountable when residents file complaints.
The raid happened on Nov. 17, 2017. COPA was notified and began investigating one year later, on Nov. 28, 2018. On various dates in 2021, COPA interviewed the officers for the first time – more than three years after the raid happened.
In January of 2022, the agency completed its investigation. And on Tuesday, COPA released its findings and recommendations to suspend the officers. Those processes alone took nearly five years. And before the officers serve the recommended suspensions, they have the right to appeal the discipline.
The Mendez family wasn't alone in their wait for COPA's findings. The agency is investigating several more years-old wrong raids cases uncovered by CBS 2.
The Mendez family also sued the city. Their case is set to go to trial next year. The city has paid outside firms more than $515,000 to fight the case, according to city data. That's just a slice of the nearly $3 million in legal fees the city paid so far to fight several other wrong raids lawsuits.
In addition to tax dollars spent litigating these cases, the city already spent millions settling some of them. In December of 2021, city council approved a $2.9 million settlement with Young.
The city settled another wrong raid case in 2020 for $300,000, after officers burst into a home and pointed guns at the family during a child's birthday party in 2019.
And before that, the city spent $2.5 million to settle the case of a wrongful police raid in 2013, when police officers pointed a gun at a 3-year-old girl.
"What about all the other little kids that had guns put to their heads?" Peter asked. "It makes me sad because I don't think any kid should have to go through that. They should be a kid, instead of having trauma, being afraid."