Politics
Rahm Emanuel Ordered to Testify About CPD’s ‘Code of Silence’ During Trial Over Botched Raid
Update: A federal judge reversed course Friday, ruling that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not have to testify.
A federal judge has ordered former Mayor Rahm Emanuel to testify next week in an upcoming trial about allegations that a “code of silence” among Chicago Police Department officers led to a botched August 2018 raid of a Back of the Yards apartment that violated the civil rights of a family with four children.
Emanuel, who served as Chicago mayor from 2011-19, is publicly weighing a run for president in 2028 after serving as U.S. ambassador to Japan. A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department, which represents the former mayor in this matter and vigorously opposed efforts to call him as a witness, declined to comment.
In a text message to WTTW News, Emanuel erroneously said the raid occurred after he left office. Emanuel, who said he was traveling, did not otherwise respond.
Emanuel acknowledged in December 2015 during an emotional speech prompted by the outrage over the police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald before the Chicago City Council that a “code of silence” among officers had prevented officials from holding CPD officers accountable for misconduct.
A 2016 probe by the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration found that “code of silence” allowed officers to act with impunity. That investigation led to the consent decree, the federal court order that requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
If Emanuel testifies as scheduled on Feb. 3, it will be the first time a former Chicago mayor will have to answer questions under oath in open court about allegations of police misconduct.
Lawyers for the city routinely oppose efforts by plaintiffs’ attorneys to force high-ranking former and current city officials to testify, since their sworn statements could expose the city to greater liability.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley was deposed in 2018 about his handling of allegations that former CPD Commander Jon Burge, and the detectives he trained, tortured and beat more than 100 Black men during his career. That deposition has never been released publicly.
High-Stakes Trial Set to Start Monday
A trial expected to last three weeks is set to start Monday to decide whether CPD officers traumatized Ebony Tate, her mother, Cynthia Eason, and four children on Aug. 9, 2018, when a CPD SWAT team set off flashbang grenades outside her apartment before breaking down the door and repeatedly pointing assault rifles directly at the children.
Lawyers for Tate, Eason and the four children —who were aged 13, 11, 8 and 4 — will try to prove to a jury that city officials knew officers were violating Chicagoans rights while serving search warrants and did nothing to stop them before the family’s rights were violated.
Eason, who was about to take a bath when officers conducted the raid, was forced to leave her home even though she was not fully dressed, according to the lawsuit.
“The Chicago police forced a 55-year-old grandmother to stand for an hour and fifteen minutes on the public street outside her home — in full view of her neighbors and the onlookers who had gathered to watch the dramatic events unfold — in nothing but a braless T-shirt and underwear,” according to the lawsuit. “Ms. Eason has never felt or been so humiliated in her life.”
During the raid “officers screamed and cursed loudly” in the children’s presence and “were rude, nasty and sarcastic,” according to the lawsuit.
Tate suffered a panic attack after being forced to leave her home during the search and was treated by paramedics at the scene, according to the lawsuit.
There is no body-worn camera footage of the raid, since officers assigned to SWAT teams were not required in 2018 to wear them, according to the lawsuit.
No drugs or weapons were recovered during the search, nor was anyone charged with a crime based on evidence discovered by the officers during the raid, records show.
The search warrant obtained by police to search the Tate and Eason apartment identified a man who did not, and had never, lived in the home, but lived nearby, according to the lawsuit.
Although officers were not authorized to enter the Tate and Eason apartment without announcing their presence, the lawsuit alleges officers used a pry bar to break down the apartment’s door without warning.
The search left the apartment in complete disarray and destroyed several of the children’s favorite toys, according to the lawsuit.
“Objects were strewn all over the surfaces and floors and sometimes left in large piles for plaintiffs’ to clean up,” according to the lawsuit. “It literally took plaintiffs weeks to clean up and recover from the physical mess and disorganization that officers wreaked.”
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the agency charged with investigating police misconduct, never determined whether officers violated CPD policy during the raid, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
None of the officers involved were disciplined.
There appeared to be a valid search warrant for Tate and Eason’s apartment, and an adult whose name is redacted “was acquainted with the subject of the search warrant,” according to the record closing the complaint opened after the lawsuit was filed.
The names of those who file complaints with the agency better known as COPA are kept confidential, under city ordinance.
Although the lawsuit prompted COPA to open a probe into the raid, neither Tate nor Eason through their attorney, Al Hofeld, agreed to sign the affidavit under oath that was required at the time to conduct an investigation, according to COPA’s records. The probe was closed in May 2020, records show.
The contract with the city’s largest police union approved by the City Council in 2021 removed the requirement for a signed affidavit before a probe could be opened.
Tate and Eason’s lawsuit names eight officers as responsible for traumatizing her family. Four officers have left the department, while three of the other officers were promoted to detective. The final officer named in the family’s lawsuit is now a sergeant, records show.
Chicago taxpayers paid private attorneys more than $592,000 to defend the officers through Sept. 9, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
One Officer, Four Lawsuits, $21M in Payments
Chicago Police Lt. James Cascone approved the warrant that police obtained to search the home of Tate and Eason, according to the family’s lawsuit.
Cascone, who retired from the department in June 2022 and now lives in Alabama, was named in three other lawsuits since 2019 that taxpayers paid nearly $21 million to resolve, records show. Cascone earns an annual pension of approximately $110,000, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The largest payment — $19.5 million — went to Ricardo Carreon, who was seriously injured in December 2015 when a car that was being pursued by Chicago police officers being supervised by Cascone struck the car he was riding in, according to court records.
In 2020, taxpayers paid $350,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed by Stephanie Bures, who said Chicago police officers, overseen by Cascone, raided her apartment with a search warrant based on bad information.
Bures said her 4- and 7-year-old children were traumatized when more than a dozen officers burst into their apartment and pointed guns at her children, according to the lawsuit. Bures was also represented by Hofeld, records show.
Police were actually looking for a man who hadn’t lived in Bures’ apartment for five years, according to the lawsuit.
One of a Series of Problematic Raids
CPD officers raided Tate and Eason’s apartment on the Southwest Side nine months after officers raided the McKinley Park apartment home to the Mendez family, records show.
In July, Chicago taxpayers paid $2.5 million to resolve the lawsuit filed by the Mendez family, who alleged their 5- and 9-year-old children were traumatized by being held at gunpoint during the raid and seeing their father handcuffed face-down on their home’s floor.
Hofeld also represented the Mendez family.
Six months after CPD officers raided Tate and Eason’s home, another team of officers raided the apartment of Anjanette Young, handcuffing the social worker while she was naked and pleading for help.
Footage of Young during the raid captured by officers’ body-worn cameras touched off a political firestorm, spotlighting CPD’s use of aggressive tactics while serving search warrants.
Chicago taxpayers paid Young $2.9 million in December 2021 to resolve her lawsuit.
Amid the outcry prompted by footage, the consent decree was expanded to include search warrants.
Chicago officials revised the department’s search warrant policy five times under intense pressure from Young, a coalition of groups advocating for police reform and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
The new policy, which is now final but has yet to take effect, does not ban officers from serving no-knock warrants or from pointing guns at children or handcuffing them during raids.
However, it requires officers to “avoid handcuffing or intentionally pointing firearms at children unless reasonably necessary.”
Between 2019 and 2025, the number of search warrants served by CPD officers dropped 83%, according to data obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
WTTW News’ Jared Rutecki contributed to this report.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
