City Council Public Safety Committee Chair Vows To Hold Public Hearing On Proposed Anjanette Young Ordinance For Search Warrant Reforms
by Todd Feurer, CBS Chicago web producer
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Two weeks after group of progressive City Council members introduced a plan for sweeping changes to Chicago Police Department search warrant policies to prevent a repeat of the botched raid on Anjanette Young's home two years ago, Public Safety Committee Chairman Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) agreed to hold a public hearing on the proposal.
Taliaferro said he has not determined a date for that hearing yet, noting his committee also is tackling competing proposals to establish a civilian oversight board for the Chicago Police Department and other important issues related to the court-enforced consent decree mandating CPD reforms.
His commitment to hold a public hearing on the proposal came as the legislation's sponsors on Wednesday urged Taliaferro and Mayor Lori Lightfoot to schedule a hearing on their plan.
"We owe it to Ms. Young, every Black woman, and every Chicagoan to have public discourse about our warrant service policy and to enshrine the Anjanette Young Ordinance into city code," the sponsors and a coalition of community groups said in a statement Wednesday morning.
The chairman said he spoke briefly with two of the sponsors of the Anjanette Young Ordinance, but has not yet discussed in detail the substance of their proposed reforms.
Last month, a group of five Black women on the City Council introduced a proposal aimed at preventing what happened inside Young's home from happening to anyone else. Young was handcuffed naked and afraid in a high-profile and violent botched police raid.
As CBS 2's Chris Tye reported, the proposed Anjanette Young Ordinance is what some city leaders call nothing short of a full-court press to dismantle systemic racism in the city of Chicago – with a reengineering of what comes before, during, and after every CPD raid.
If passed, it would reform what happens before, during and after moments like the wrong raid on Young's home two years ago this week, which was first exposed by CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini.
The ordinance is sweeping. It calls for all raids to include a knock, an announcement, and no less than 30 seconds' wait to break down a door.
It also calls for residential search warrants to be limited between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. And any informants that provide bad tips can't be used again.
The ordinance further calls for body cameras to roll for the entire raid, and for police to limit raids when children and vulnerable people aren't there - and special plans if they are.
However, just days after the sponsors of the Anjanette Young Ordinance introduced their plan, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Police Supt. David Brown unveiled their own plan to overhaul CPD search warrant policies.
The sponsors of the Anjanette Young Ordinance said those changes include some of the same reforms they have proposed, but they don't believe the administration's plan goes far enough -- in particular arguing the changes should be made through city legislation, not just through CPD policy.
"We believe that the residents of Chicago deserve meaningful reforms embedded in the code of our city to give a stronger assurance that their human and civil rights will be protected," the sponsors said in a statement.
That's why Taliaferro, a former police officer, said he's recommending they speak with the mayor about "working together on responsible legislation" that would include not only some of the search warrant reforms his colleagues on the City Council proposed, but the changes CPD already has announced.
"I'm hoping they can work together with the administration to put Chicago first" and not have two competing efforts to overhaul search warrant policies, Taliaferro said. "I hope the sponsors of this ordinance will work together with the administration to do what's best."
