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December 17th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
Chicago tried to block video showing police wrongly raiding the home of a woman who was naked as officers smashed through her door and then arrested her.
Lawyers for city mayor Lori lightfood on Monday filed an emergency motion in court to prevent footage of the bungled search being made public.
Officials applied to a federal judge after local news station CBS2-TV obtained film of police forcing their way into the home of social worker Anjanette Young in February 2019.
But the judge rejected the city’s bid to suppress the police bodycam footage as CBS2-TV broadcast its report on Monday.
The clip shows around nine officers, all of them men, entering Ms Young’s home after beating down her door with a battering ram.
She had just returned home from her work at a local hospital and was getting undressed when the botched raid took place.
Some officers appear to have their guns drawn as they enter the home and tell Ms Young to put her hands up.
A visibly distressed Ms Young can be seen naked in the video remonstrating with the cops, telling them they must have the wrong address.
After Ms Young is arrested, one officer can be seen draping a blanket over her, but it falls off as her hands are prevented from holding it up.
One officer eventually holds the blanket around Ms Young, who repeatedly asks why her home is being raided but gets no response.
“It was so traumatic to hear the thing that was hitting the door,” Ms Young told CBS2 in a televised interview as part of Monday’s report.
“And it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to put on clothes.”
The suspect the police had been looking for lived in the property next door and had no connection to Ms Young, who told police 43 times they had the wrong address, according to CBS2.
Officers executed the warrant on intelligence from a confidential informant whose information they did not verify, the network reported.
The informant told police the suspect, who was wearing an electronic tag, had recently been seen at the property with guns and ammunition.
“When I asked them to show me, when I asked them to tell me what they are doing in my house, and their response to me was just ‘shut up and calm down,’” Ms Young told the station. “That’s so disrespectful.”
Ms Young added: “They are adding trauma to people’s lives that will be with them the rest of their lives. The system is broken.”
Using Freedom of Information requests, Ms Young had for nearly two years fought with the Chicago Police Department to get access to the footage.
CPD denied those requests but was eventually ordered to hand over the video as part of a lawsuit by Young.
Once Ms Young got hold of the video, lawyers for the mayor’s office filed their emergency motion to prevent it from being aired on TV.
“In open court, Defense Counsel specifically outlined concerns that this video would be shared with the media in a salacious and unfair manner designed to elicit a reactionary response, which carries the risk of poisoning the public’s view of the case,” Lawyers for Ms Lightfood had argued.
They also argued the clip did not represent an accurate portrayal of events.
Responding, CBS2 filed court papers arguing the city’s efforts to block the footage being aired were unconstitutional.
The judge denied the request of Ms Lightfoot’s lawyers and the clip was broadcast. It was not clear if the officer involved in the raid would face any disciplinary action.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating the incident.
The Independent has contacted the CPD for comment.
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