Crime & Law
Key City Panel OKs Nomination of Anjanette Young to Serve on Chicago Police Oversight Board
Anjanette Young appears on “Chicago Tonight” on Oct. 28, 2024. (WTTW News)
A key city panel on Wednesday advanced Mayor Brandon Johnson’s nomination of Anjanette Young, a social worker who was handcuffed while naked during a botched 2019 Chicago Police Department raid, to serve on the city’s police oversight board.
The City Council’s Police and Fire Committee voted 14-2 to send Young’s nomination to serve a four-year term on the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability to the full City Council for a final vote on May 20.
In addition, the committee voted 13-3 to advance the nomination of Angelique Guzman to serve on the commission better known as the CCPSA. Guzman is a senior at Mather High School on the North Side and an intern in the office of Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward).
Alds. Anthony Napolitano (41st Ward) and Silvana Tabares (23rd Ward) voted against Young and Guzman, while Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th Ward) voted against Guzman.
The CCPSA oversees the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and the Chicago Police Board and has the power to set CPD policy. It is also responsible for conducting a search for a CPD superintendent and sending finalists to the mayor.
Young, a South Side resident, said that, if confirmed, she would serve on the commission with an “open mind.”
The botched raid of her apartment “gave me firsthand understanding of what happens when systems fail our community,” Young told the committee.
“It strengthened my resolve to help rebuild trust between community and law enforcement through meaningful, lasting change,” Young said. “My lived experience does not compromise my ability to be fair.”
Police and Fire Committee Chair Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th Ward) called the raid of Young’s apartment “horrific,” “degrading” and “wrongful.”
“One of the things I so respect about you, is that you never took a moment to talk bad about our police department,” said Taliaferro, adding that he appreciated Young’s effort to change CPD policy so no one else was harmed.
Young, who endorsed Johnson in the 2023 mayoral race, has urged CPD to ban no-knock warrants, require officers to wait at least 30 seconds before entering a home with a warrant and prohibit officers from pointing guns at children.
Young urged state lawmakers in April to change state law to impose those restrictions on all Illinois police departments.
While CPD has significantly changed its search warrant policy since 2020, police brass have refused to make those changes. In December 2021, taxpayers paid $2.9 million to resolve the lawsuit Young filed against the city.
An effort by the City Council to pass an ordinance named for Young that would impose more restrictions remains stalled.
The CCPSA does not have the authority to change CPD’s search warrant policies, since that issue is covered by the federal court order known as the consent decree, which requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
Both Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th Ward) and Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward) said they were prepared to vote against Young’s nomination until her remarks made them change their minds.
Curtis said he was concerned that Young would use her position to exact revenge on the police department, even though Curtis said what happened to her during the raid “tore my heart.”
“I thought of a phrase we used to use a long time ago: ‘It’s not fun now that the rabbit has the gun,’” Curtis said. “I thought of you, because I said, ‘uh oh, there’s got to be a situation where you got me this time and I’ll get you this time, right?”
But Curtis told Young her “actually awesome” testimony “softened up my heart and what I was thinking.”
While Sposato, one of the City Council’s most conservative members, voted to advance Young’s nomination, he did so after referring to the commission as the “CCBSA,” using the profanity abbreviation BS to replace part of the police oversight board’s name and expressing hope that it would not operate for very much longer.
Napolitano, a former Chicago police officer who represents a Far Northwest Side ward where many residents are city employees, said he agreed with a member of the public who told the committee that Young and Guzman had not been selected on “merit.”
Napolitano did not detail why he believed Young, who is Black, and Guzman, who is Latina, were not qualified to serve on the commission, even though they were selected by a 22-member nominating committee, made up of one elected police district council member from each of Chicago’s 22 police districts, from among more than 50 applicants, and chosen by the mayor, officials said.
After thanking both Young and Guzman for “stepping up” to serve Chicago, Napolitano called the commission “a farce,” “a sham,” “a pile of garbage” and a “waste of money.”
“I’m looking forward, after the next election, to getting rid of this (commission) completely,” Napolitano said.
Commissioners are unpaid, with a monthly stipend of $1,000 each to offset the expense of serving on the CCPSA. The city’s budget sets aside $4 million for the commission to operate in 2026, records show.
Tabares, whose husband, Sean, is a Chicago police officer, said she blamed the demands for racial justice and police reform that swept the nation after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, energizing the “defund the police” movement, for a nearly 250% increase in the number of times Chicago officers have been shot at in the past six years. Tabares did not identify the source of that data, which could not be independently verified by WTTW News.
Tabares told Young she did not believe she would be a fair commissioner because she told WTTW News’ “Chicago Tonight” in October 2024 that it was “excessive” for four officers to have fired 96 shots in 41 seconds at Dexter Reed in March 2024, hitting him 13 times, shortly after Reed shot and wounded a fifth officer.
“I don’t think this is the perspective of somebody who can be objective,” said Tabares, yelling at Young. “You’re seeking an appointment to a commission born out of the same movement that also saw the skyrocketing of attacks on police.”
Tabares said the CCPSA’s existence is “unnecessary.” But if the commission is to operate, she added, it should focus on protecting police officers from the public, not the other way around.
“We need individuals who are avoiding dangerous anti-police rhetoric that incites violence,” Tabares said.
When Young offered to respond to Tabares’ statements, Tabares said that was not necessary.
In all of 2025, officers shot 22 people, killing nine, according to WTTW News’ analysis of city data. Since the start of 2026, officers have shot two people, killing one, records show.
No member of the committee asked any questions of Guzman, who will serve as one of two youth members of the CCPSA. The city’s ordinance requires two commission members to be between the ages of 18 and 24.
Guzman, who will attend Loyola University in the fall, said she would serve as commissioner, if confirmed, with “thoughtfulness and care.”
“I also believe that youth voices need to be part of the decisions, not just represented, because we bring a perspective that is often missing,” Guzman said.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th Ward), who voted in favor of confirming both Guzman and Young, expressed concern that any 18-year-old Chicagoan would serve on such an important commission, and suggested that the ordinance creating the CCPSA be revised.
A third seat on the CCPSA is set to become vacant in October. Johnson must pick one of the candidates selected by the nominating committee who lives on the North Side and is between the ages of 18 and 24.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
