A still image from a Chicago Police Department body camera video shows a police raid at the home of Anjanette Young in February 2019. (WTTW News via Ja’Mal Green)

Three aldermen invoked a rarely used provision of state law to call a special meeting of the Chicago City Council for 2 p.m. Tuesday amid a growing furor over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s handling of a video showing Chicago police officers handcuffing a naked woman during a mistaken raid of her home in February 2019.

Alds. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward), Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward) and Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward) filed the request Friday for the special City Council meeting, which is scheduled to take place virtually.

The meeting — set to take place three days before Christmas — is the second time in recent months that aldermen at odds with Lightfoot have called a special meeting. In August, Lopez joined forces with Alds. Leslie Hairston (5th Ward), Anthony Beale (9th Ward) and Anthony Napolitano (41st Ward) to force a special meeting on the civil unrest that swept the city.

The agenda for Tuesday’s special meeting includes an order that would stop the city’s Law Department from sanctioning Anjanette Young, the social worker whose home was raided, for releasing the video of the raid. 

Young told officers 43 times that they were in the wrong home and begged them to let her get dressed.

The order would also block the city’s lawyers from sanctioning Young’s lawyers for releasing the video, which was under a protective order issued by a judge.

Lightfoot announced on Tuesday that she would direct the city’s top lawyer to drop any effort to sanction Young, and told Perri Small of WVON Radio Friday morning that she would instruct the city’s lawyers to drop any effort to sanction Young’s attorneys.

Hours after the aldermen called for the special meeting, Lightfoot made that request official in a court filing signed by Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner.

“While we remain concerned that a violation of a court order may have occurred, I believe that we should give Attorney [Keenan] Saulter the benefit of the doubt that he did not appreciate that the court’s confidentiality order continued in full force and effect, even after the voluntary dismissal of the case in March 2020,” according to the filing. “We urge the court to take no action against Attorney Saulter.”

The court filing also “specifically affirms” that the city never sought to sanction Young but asked the judge to sanction Saulter because city lawyers “take very seriously our responsibility as officers of the court and were very concerned that a violation of a court order had occurred.” 

In addition, the filing seeks to withdraw a request made by city lawyers that urged the judge in the case to prevent CBS2-TV from airing the video of the raid. 

The judge already rejected that request, which violated the First Amendment, but Lightfoot said that she wanted the record to reflect that the request “was a mistake.” 

That order, if approved by the City Council, directs that “any legal action related to Ms. Young” be settled.

The rare special City Council meeting — held during the week of Christmas — will give aldermen a chance to get answers, Taylor said.

“We need to get answers,” Taylor said. “Our trust has been betrayed.”

Lightfoot’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from WTTW News about the special meeting.

Before the special meeting was called, a joint session of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee and Health and Human Relations Committee had been scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. Tuesday for a hearing on the rules governing the Chicago Police Department’s use of search warrants.

It is not clear whether that hearing will take place.

Lightfoot on Thursday acknowledged that she has known about the raid since November 2019, even though she told the news media on Wednesday that she learned about the raid for the first time Tuesday morning from CBS2-TV.

Lightfoot said Thursday that the raid — and efforts by city lawyers to prevent Young from getting a copy of the video and to stop CBS2-TV from publishing the video — had damaged her efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department.

“We will do better, and we will win back the trust that we have lost this week,” Lightfoot said. “I have a responsibility to build back that trust.”

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]