Chicago Police Board Votes To Fire Sergeant In Botched Anjanette Young Raid
The Chicago Police Board voted 5-3 Thursday (June 15) to terminate the policeman who oversaw a botched raid at the home of Anjanette Young, the Chicago Sun Times reports.
Officers callously left Young handcuffed naked for about 20 minutes in a room full of male cops after realizing they were in the wrong house. The written ruling said Sgt. Alex Wolinski violated multiple procedural rules and exhibited a “failure of leadership.”
Wolinski’s actions breached the police department’s “disrespect to or maltreatment of any person” rule, the board found. He was also accused of failing to promptly present a search warrant to Young and failing to follow the department’s knock-and-announce rules before entering the home, among other violations.
The three dissenting board members wrote that a “lengthy” suspension without pay would have been a more appropriate punishment for the sergeant, arguing that he simply lacked the skills to effectively deescalate the situation.
Police body cam footage shows Young, a clinical social worker, was in the privacy of her bedroom disrobing when the police entered. Officers used a battering ram to knock down Young’s door in search of a suspected felon.
“Before I knew it, there was a swarm of police officers. They had these big guns, long guns with scopes and lights… I thought they were going to shoot me,” she told CBS Chicago in 2019.
Young told the officers that they were in the wrong home, but they ignored her. It turned out the CPD did not verify that the suspect actually lived in the residence, which he did not, according to an investigation from CBS Chicago. That was information that would have been easy to find because the suspect wore an electronic anklet that the police were tracking, the news report said.
A female officer is seen entering and uncuffing Young. She escorts Young to her bedroom to put on clothes before she is placed in handcuffs again.
Young filed suit against the city and 12 officers over the botched raid and received a $2.9 million settlement from the city.