Chicago taxpayers could soon be on the hook for $2.5 million to reimburse a family who says police raided the wrong home and pointed guns at their 9- and 5-year-old sons in 2017.

The City Council Finance Committee on Monday is expected to vote on that settlement with Gilbert and Hester Mendez, after police broke down the door to their home in McKinley Park on Nov. 7, 2017 and shouted profanities. The family also accused officers of pointing assault rifles and handguns at them and their children, Peter and Jack.

The pending $2.5 million settlement is in addition to the more than $712,000 in tax dollars that the city spent on legal fees to private firms to defend the police department and its officers involved, data shows. 

The botched raid sparked CBS News Chicago's yearslong investigation into a pattern of Chicago police officers raiding the wrong homes, and using force on children, including handcuffing and pointing guns at them.   

The Mendez children can be heard crying and screaming in body camera video from the raid, as police handcuffed their father, Gilbert, face down on the ground in front of them.

"I could hear my babies screaming, 'Don't shoot my Dad. Don't kill my Dad. Leave my Dad alone. What did my Dad do?'" Gilbert told CBS News Chicago.

Peter said he will never forget the emotional pain he suffered that night.

"The four or five people [officers] said to my Dad, 'Get the f down get the f down we will shoot you," Peter said.

At one point during the search, an officer is heard on camera acknowledging police are in the wrong apartment. Officers previously denied pointing guns at anyone during the raid in interviews with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

The family said the children feared for their lives, and Peter is suffering from symptoms of PTSD as a result.

The family filed a federal lawsuit against the city in 2018, accusing police of using unreasonable and unnecessary force against the children and their parents, unlawful search, unlawful detention, false arrest, and infliction of emotional distress, among other counts.

It all started 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 South Damen Avenue. But a CBS News Chicago investigation found police failed to follow department policy and independently verify the address the informant gave him was correct. It wasn't.

Despite this, police supervisors, an assistant 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, a team of several officers burst into family's apartment.

"Next thing you know, I look back and I just see the cops coming through our door" with guns, Peter said in his first interview with CBS News Chicago in 2018. "They [police officers] traumatized me a lot."

Body camera video shows the officers did not immediately show the family the warrant. When Hester did eventually see it, she noticed the person listed on the warrant was someone who lived in a different apartment in the same building.

"Even after I told them that they were in the wrong place and the people live upstairs, they still continued to search," she said.

The family's lawsuit against the city went to trial in April, after previous attempts to reach a settlement failed. But the trial was called off a week later after the two sides reached an agreement to settle the case.

Before the settlement was reached, Hester testified at trial that her sons are not the same since the raid happened; that they became afraid often, in high alert, and needed therapy. She said they are still struggling with the trauma today. 

"Our home was our home, and we felt safe in our home" Hester said in court, "and that was taken away from us."

Attorney Al Hofeld Jr., who represents the Mendez family, told the jury the family was simply living their lives when officers burst into their apartment that night, "destroying their sense of security at home and traumatizing young Peter and Jack."

The Mendez family attorneys also told the jury that what happened to them isn't isolated — making the case that the CPD using excessive force against children is a "widespread practice across the city, and that city officials knew about it, and did nothing."  

Another issue raised during the trial was missing body camera video from some of the officers. 

During opening statements, a city attorney denied officers pointed guns at the children, said they acted lawfully, and claimed the lack of video wasn't a coverup — but a result of growing pains with a new body camera program.  

Peter Mendez himself, now 17, also took the stand. He reiterated that guns were pointed at him and his family.

"My life flashed before my eyes. My heart was pounding," Peter told the jury. "I thought I wasn't going to have a dad.  I thought I was going to lose my father that day."

While city attorneys argued gun pointing could not be seen on body camera video, experts who testified for the family argued there are moments in the video that refute that. One example is when an officer's elbow is raised in "shooter position," one expert testified. The expert argued the stance is consistent with pointing a rifle at someone, and that in the video, the officer did so, in the direction of the children's father when he was handcuffed on the floor.   

Several search warrant reforms were enacted after CBS News Chicago first told the Mendez family's story, including a state law in Peter's name.

The video above is from a previous report.