Jury selected in wrongful raid trial of Southwest Side family by Chicago police in 2018

The civil rights trial of a wrongful Chicago police raid on an innocent family began on Monday.

The case involves a Chicago grandmother, her daughter, and her four grandchildren, who all said police pointed guns at them. It's a case CBS Chicago first exposed years ago.

The botched raid happened back in 2018. The family said they've been living with trauma from it ever since. On Monday in a packed courtroom, they sat behind the officers involved as a jury was selected.

Attorney: "How did you feel when all this happened?

Lakai'ya: Scared.

Attorney: Why were you scared?

Lakai'ya: Because I didn't know what was going on."

Lakai'ya Booth and her siblings answered questions during a pre-trial deposition as part of their federal civil rights lawsuit against the city. She was just four years old when CPD officers wrongly raided her family's home. 

She's one of dozens of children documented over the last eight years who said police pointed guns at them during similar raids.

Attorney: What do you remember happening that day?

La'niya: A big boom sound.

Her older sister, Laniya, was 11 at the time of the raid.

"A lot of like five to 10 police officers rushing in with these big guns," she said.

One after another, they relived that moment in 2018 when officers burst into their family's home in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Attorney: Why do you think you felt afraid when the guns were pointed at you?

E'Monie: Because there's weapons pointed at a 13-year-old.

Now, over seven years after the raid, they will testify against the officers involved, accusing them of excessive force, pointing guns at them, and leaving them traumatized.

Their mother and grandmother were also there when police raided the home looking for a gang member and a handgun, but an investigation by CBS News Chicago found they were in the wrong house. 

They took the word of a paid informant and didn't properly vet the information.

"I'm like, oh my god. Please don't let him shoot my baby," Cynthia Eason said in 2018.

The CBS News Chicago investigators have spent years exposing how innocent people are treated by officers during these raids, especially children.

Some of the children from other wrongful raid cases are also expected to testify as part of the trial. Attorneys for the family will work to prove that CPD engages in a pattern of pointing guns and using excessive force against children.

"What are you doing, pointing guns at innocent young children? Wake up," said Attorney Al Hofeld Jr.

Hofeld is the family's attorney and said the jury will also hear the traumatic impact on the adults who were in the home at the time of the raid, like Eason, the children's grandmother, who was in her underwear when officers burst into the home.

Eason said police forced her outside in a state of undress in front of her neighbors.

"When I was sitting there, one officer was laughing at me," she said. 

She said she kept asking for clothes but was denied.

"I looked at him, he's laughing, and imagine how that feels," she said.  

Data shows the cities already spent $600,000 on legal fees for private law firms to defend the officers involved, and that number is expected to increase as the trial is expected to last a month.