Settlement reached in lawsuit over wrong Chicago police raid
A settlement agreement was reached between the City of Chicago and an innocent family whose home was wrongly raided by the Chicago police.
According to federal court filings, the agreement happened late Tuesday amid an emotional trial, where the Mendez family and their children testified officers pointed guns at them, leaving them traumatized to this day.
The settlement amount is confidential and pending approval from the Chicago City Council. The city's Law Department declined to comment until then.
The Mendez family sued the City of Chicago, accusing police of violating their civil rights and traumatizing them and their children — then-9-year-old Peter and 5-year-old Jack — during the raid in November of 2017.
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 ordeal for the family started 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.
CBS News Chicago's investigation found officers were in the wrong apartment, and the target of the raid actually lived upstairs.
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.
Over the last week and a half since the trial started, jurors saw body cam video from the raid — including moments outside before officers burst into the Mendez family's apartment, yelling, "Chicago Police search warrant!"
In that video before the raid, an officer has his rifle with a flashlight on a barrel pointing upward in the direction of Hester Mendez as she looks out her window.
The officer carrying the rifle, Officer Joseph Cappello, demonstrated to the jury how he was holding the gun — trying to prove he didn't point it at anyone.
But other critical moments captured on body camera video represent when the family's attorneys and experts testified that Cappello indeed did point the gun at members of the family.
The jury also learned Cappello and two other officers weren't using their body cameras as they entered the building as required — leaving no video for several seconds.
Last week, the Mendez family testified in U.S. District Court in the trial of their federal lawsuit. Peter, now 17, took the stand on Wednesday. He reiterated that guns were pointed at him and his family.
In the body camera video of the raid, Peter and Jack can be heard crying and screaming as police handcuffed their father face down on the ground in front of them.
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 body camera video itself, and the lack thereof, became a key piece of evidence that was shown several times in court, and in arguments by both attorneys for the city and the Mendez family.
They called to the stand several witnesses, respectively, including policing experts and child psychologists. The family's attorneys worked to convince the jury that the raid left lasting trauma on Peter and Jack, and that CPD engages in a pattern and practice of using excessive force on children.
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.
The family's arguments also called into question how some officers failed to turn their body cameras on, or didn't wear them at all, making it impossible to see what happened during certain moments of the raid.
The last thing the jury saw before being dismissed for the settlement was a video deposition of Davianna Simmons, who said police pointed a gun at her during a botched raid in 2013 — when she was just 3 years old.
The city previously settled with Davianna's family for $2.5 million for that wrong raid. Davianna was one of several other victims from whom the jury heard, as the Mendez family attorneys worked to establish a pattern of unnecessary force by the CPD.
This was all a tiring process for the Mendez family, but they are relieved the case is over. Several search warrant reforms were enacted after CBS News Chicago first told their story, including a state law in Peter's name.
