Shimon Cohen:

Welcome to Doin' The Work: Frontline Stories of Social Change, where we bring you stories of real people working to address real issues. I am your host, Shimon Cohen.

Shimon Cohen:

In this episode, I talk with an Anjanette Young, who is a licensed clinical social worker and the CEO and founder of Cafe Social Work in Chicago, Illinois. Anjanette shares her experience of being terrorized in her home by the Chicago Police Department. Twelve White male police officers forced their way into her home when executing a warrant based on incorrect information, handcuffed her, and held her at gunpoint for 30 to 45 minutes, all the while Anjanette was naked because she had just gotten out of the shower after a long day at work. Despite her pleas that they were in the wrong home, all of them ignored her. An excellent lawyer and local news station helped expose the horrific raid and eventually forced the City to release the body cam footage, as well as evidence showing that the Chicago mayor knew about the raid and covered it up. Anjanette explains how this experience has led her to learn more about the Chicago Police Department's repeated violations of the rights of Black and Brown Chicago residents, and how she is now fighting the City of Chicago in order to make sure this does not happen to anyone else. She talks about how she has mainly practiced direct service social work for over 25 years, but has now become a social justice activist, focused on policy change. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.

Shimon Cohen:

Hey, Anjanette, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I've been really looking forward to talking with you about your experience and your current approach to social work based on your experience. So I just want to welcome you to the podcast.

Anjanette Young:

Well, Shimon, thank you so much for just reaching out and connecting and becoming a partner in the social work work that we do. I'm really excited to be on the podcast with you and just share with your listeners my wisdom in social work and my wisdom in my new role as a social justice activist.

Shimon Cohen:

Sounds great. And before we get into all that, I just want to ask, how are you? How are you doing?

Anjanette Young:

It's really day by day. So today was a pretty good day, nothing too crazy is happening. But overall, I'm doing okay. It's a tough journey. Having an experience that traumatizes you from a system that you totally expect to protect you is really hard. And so, I'm dealing with it day by day. So today, I'm okay.

Shimon Cohen:

I'm glad today's good. And I should also put out there that we're recording this in early March, and this is going to go live in April. And so, I know a lot can also change between now and then. We'll try to update that by linking people to your story and to your case, but hopefully, people listening will then also go and look it up on their own and stay current on what's going on.

Anjanette Young:

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot in the media right now regarding Anjanette Young. If you google on Twitter and Facebook and all of the social media platforms, there's been a lot of stories that have been surfacing around my experience with the Chicago Police Department.

Shimon Cohen:

So let's talk about your experience. Of course, you've shared this in so many places, and you've been so incredibly vulnerable with this experience. As much as you feel comfortable, if you could let people know about your experience with the Chicago police.

Anjanette Young:

Sure. So, back in 2019, February 2019, I had an experience where the Chicago Police Department raided my home with bad information. They had the wrong place, they had information that was not accurate, that led them to my door. And in that process, it was just very horrific in the way that they treated me in that process. So, they rammed in my front door, came in with guns and lights and scopes. I had been home all of about 15 or 20 minutes, was undressing to just kind of unwind my day, and they bust into my home and yell, "Chicago Police Department, put your hands up." And I was completely naked, I didn't have on any clothing at the time. And they went forth with what it is that they thought they were there to do.

Anjanette Young:

And so, in the process of that, I'm standing there with no clothes on completely naked. They handcuff me, they raid my home, they search my home. And the entire time, I'm yelling and I'm screaming and I'm crying to them telling them that they have the wrong place. And what's most horrific about this is just the way they treated me. So they ignored everything that I said, they were yelling at me, they made me stand in front of them with no clothes on for over 35, 40 minutes. And never told me why they were in my home until much later. And so, it's just been a very horrific experience.

Shimon Cohen:

Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing about it. I saw the body cam footage, when it went public, and that's how I learned about you. Soon after that, we connected. That body cam footage, that didn't even go public until a little over a year after the raid?

Anjanette Young:

Correct. What is for me right now, the worst part of this situation is that the City initially never admitted that they did anything wrong to me. So this incident happened February 21st, 2019. And I immediately hired an attorney and began to legally fight the process of what they had done to me. And they just kind of brushed it under the rug. It didn't go anywhere. My attorney reached out to the City, filed some motions and some complaints for the City to talk to us about what happened. And they just denied the entire process.

Anjanette Young:

And then a few months later in November of that same year, CBS2 in Chicago, a local news station, had already begun to do a series regarding the wrong raids in the City of Chicago. So this had been happening to so many families for so many years and CBS2 was doing a story about it. And so, my attorney and I decided to reach out to them to add my story to the process of what they were already working on. So we did a story in 2019, and it just kind of made local news. It hit the news and it made local news, but it didn't make national news as this last story did.

Shimon Cohen:

I want to get back to when you're home, you're in your own home, you've been working all day as a social worker, doing what you've been doing for 25 years. They bust into your home. At that moment, I mean, I don't want to obviously put feelings onto you, but that has to be one of the most terrifying experiences a person could ever go through.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. For me, it was my first encounter with the police in that manner. So I'm a person, I like to say I kind of go to work every day mind my own business, and don't live the type of lifestyle where I would have a negative encounter with the police. Have I been pulled over for a speeding ticket before? Absolutely. But that's probably the most interaction that I've personally had with police. And so, for this to happen in the way that it did, it's hard to describe.

Anjanette Young:

When you watch the body cam footage, it tells a better story than I can describe because often I'm lost for words to explain what I was really feeling on that night. I like to tell people that I was scared, I was afraid, I wasn't sure what was happening because no one was explaining to me what was going on. I didn't understand why they had to put me in handcuffs, I didn't understand why they wouldn't allow me to get dressed. And so, it's hard to put in words what I was feeling that night, even when I watched the body cam footage. It's hard to hear my own voice and the horror and the terror that's in my voice. I tell people, for me, the sound of the body cam footage was worse than actually the visual of the body cam footage. Hearing my own voice and hearing the terror in my voice is more than I can describe.

Shimon Cohen:

I've heard you talk about, and when we've talked before, you've shared, you feel like you were one instance away from being murdered like Breonna Taylor.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. Because of the way they came in and they had big guns and they were pointing them at me and they were shouting at me, I tell people that I was scared into compliance, I was too afraid to move or do anything beyond just stand there with my hands up. I absolutely felt in that moment, had I done anything different, that they would have shot me. I feared for my life. I didn't know what to do other than to just stand there in the nude with my hands up in the air.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, and I know in the video they eventually put a blanket over you and because you're handcuffed and they don't do anything to secure the blanket, it's falling off throughout that whole time.

Anjanette Young:

They did put a blanket around me, and like you said, they put it around my shoulders, and because I was handcuffed, I wasn't able to hold it or secure it myself. So it continued to slide off. And it's just for me, when I watched that part of the video, it's one of those things where there was no intention or purpose in protecting me in any type of way. I felt like it was just a gesture, like let's put this around her. But the entire time, they stood directly in front of me, well, one officer behind me who handcuffed me, and then the rest of them standing around me and directly in front of me talking to me and yelling at me. And the whole time the blanket is opening, I'm exposed to them. They are not even considering the fact that I'm standing there with no clothes on.

Shimon Cohen:

Absolutely horrific and must have been an incredibly dehumanizing feeling.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. I tell people all the time that one of the biggest takeaways from this for me is feeling ignored. The officers ignored me the night that they came into my home, they didn't listen to me when I told them over 43 times that they had the wrong place. They ignored me when I asked to get dressed. They ignored me when I asked them to tell me what they were looking for in my home. They ignored me when I asked to see the search warrant.

Shimon Cohen:

And then my understanding is that they ignored you when you tried to get the body cam footage too.

Anjanette Young:

So that is correct. And after I hired an attorney and we started the legal process, the City ignored me even more with my request for the body cam footage. The Channel 2 News that was doing the story, they submitted a FOIA request, which they have every right to as the media, and that request was denied for them, stating that it was personal information for me, and that they couldn't share that with the media. So then I made a personal request, FOIA request. They denied me the FOIA request, stating that it was an ongoing investigation so I wasn't allowed to have that information either, which in both instances was incorrect. They should have released that information both to CBS2 - the media - when they requested it, and then also they should have released it to me when I requested it. But they didn't on either side. My attorney later had to request the body cam footage through a legal proceeding.

Shimon Cohen:

The body cam footage release, that's what really got the national attention going, correct?

Anjanette Young:

Correct. So CBS2 did the original story back in November of 2019. It took us an entire year to get that body cam footage because the next story didn't come out until December of 2020, where we then had the body cam footage and was able to take some time to review it ourselves, because it was quite a bit of footage. And then also prepare it for it to be shown in the media. So we had to hire someone to digitally screen out certain parts of the video so that we could show it in the news media. And so, it was a year later that we got all of that information and was able to do an additional story, which is the story that pretty much everyone had seen at this point that aired in December of 2020.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, and can you also talk about the mayor and how she's handled the whole situation?

Anjanette Young:

So the mayor has not been very responsive to me, and it's another part of me continuing to feel being ignored in this process, because when the story came out in November of 2019, the mayor was made aware of it at that point, and we later have found out that there was a chain of emails that went back and forth between the mayor and people in her department and the superintendent of the police department as it relates to the story when it came out in 2019. And they didn't do anything about it in 2019. And then when the story aired in 2020 and the mayor saw it and was asked about it, she denied that she knew anything about it.

Anjanette Young:

And over a three day period of news media happening, she changed her story because she was being called out on information that she lied about. So she lied about that she had never seen the story, and then the next day, she came back and said, I did have information about it. And she mentioned that someone had emailed her about it. So then she got called out and said - and the public asked to see those emails, and because she's the mayor, that's public information because the public pays her salary. So she was forced to release emails that she and different people in her department had sent back and forth regarding it. And we found out that there was over 150 pages of emails about this situation back in 2019. And she never did anything about it.

Shimon Cohen:

All those emails about you.

Anjanette Young:

All those emails about me and the raid that happened on my home. And it was a year later that we found out that she had the emails, she had firsthand knowledge of it, and she didn't do anything to address the issue.

Shimon Cohen:

So, Anjanette, you've been a social worker a long time, and we'll talk about it. I can imagine during that time you've been there and you've helped so many people. And now you're in this situation with this incredibly traumatic experience. What has your healing process looked like?

Anjanette Young:

My professional background definitely gave me an advantage to knowing what I needed for my healing process. I connected with a therapist and started to do the work as it relates to my experience. I like to tell people because I'm a woman of faith, my prayer life and my relationship with God and my spirituality is a key component to me being able to heal, or in the healing process. My church has been an extremely supportive space for me. In my church, I get guidance from my pastor, and spiritually, I'm able to connect. And then I also volunteer in my church. So serving others also gives me a sense of healing and purpose, being able to not focus on myself but help someone else takes the focus off me, and that helps the healing process also.

Anjanette Young:

And with my therapist, I always say to her that I don't want to own the title of being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, although that's what it is. I like to say that I have post-traumatic stress moments, where I'm triggered by certain things because of this incident. Loud noises in the middle of the night, police sirens. Even the site of a cop car increases my anxiety when I'm out in the community now because of this situation. But my social work experience in education and wisdom that I've learned over the years helps me to know what I'm feeling when I feel it.

Anjanette Young:

So, for a lot of people, when they are anxious or have racing heartbeats or heart palpitations, not necessarily knowing what is causing that, because of my experience and the work that I've done, I know what I'm feeling when I feel it. So then I know how to self-regulate.

Shimon Cohen:

As we're just talking, and again, when we first connected, I'm just in awe of your ability to get through this. Like you said at the beginning, it's day by day, right?

Anjanette Young:

It's absolutely day by day, and I tell people that I can't say that I'm over it. I don't know that I would ever be over it. And there are moments that I cry myself to sleep at night. That's just being honest. And I have to take time to feel what I'm feeling, and I have to take time to pray and to find my quiet spaces, so that I can get up the next morning and function.

Anjanette Young:

One thing that I have committed myself to in this process is that I will not allow this experience to defeat me. I will not allow it to take away the joy that I have in being a social worker and helping other people. I will not allow it to take away the joy that I have in just being the person who I've always been. And actually, this experience has pushed me into a direction of being a social activist now, because I know what happened to me has happened to other families. I know that I have been blessed in my experience to have an amazing attorney and a large support system through my family and friends at my church. And I know that that's not always the experience of everyone who has had this experience.

Anjanette Young:

So I'm committed to fighting for justice for myself, and justice for others in the sense that with my fight with the City, I'm asking for policy changes and reform and legislation and the way that they operate and the way that the City of Chicago Police Department interact with Black and Brown families, because we know this doesn't happen in White communities.

Shimon Cohen:

Exactly. That was something I wanted to ask you about is how you've connected with other families who've been raided, victimized by the police.

Anjanette Young:

So I have a desire to do that, but because I have an active legal case, I'm not allowed to connect directly with them at this time. But it is definitely my desire and my fight that I acknowledge that I'm not doing this just for myself. And at some point when it's not conflicting with my legal case, I will absolutely personally connect with those other families.

Shimon Cohen:

It's that social worker part of you too where you've gone through this, this is such a personal and individual experience. But you know it happens, it has happened to so many others. And so, you're going to do this work for not just you but for others as well. As you said, this transformation into a social justice activist, can you kind of talk about that process of what your social work's been like for 25 years, and what you're doing now and where you're headed?

Anjanette Young:

So, the last 25 years before this incident, my social work practice and experience has been direct practice work, working directly with families, helping to problem solve social issues, helping families to deal with mental health challenges that they may have in their family. So I've always been a direct practice social worker. Not heavily into advocacy and social justice. I would definitely say that I've been involved in some marches and signed some petitions to support a certain policy, but my work has always been directly with families.

Anjanette Young:

This experience has changed that for me. I tell people that before this, I was a pretty quiet person. Not a lot of people knew my name. And I was okay with that. I just enjoyed the one on one work with families, I enjoyed doing my best to work for families and going home to a quiet house. I wasn't big on social media before this. And this incident has exploded in a way that I have become this public figure that I'm now learning how to utilize that. This is a new space for me. I was having a conversation with someone this morning for something else that I'm going to be doing in the future, and I say that when this all came out in the media in 2020, I did a lot of interviews.

Anjanette Young:

So, I interviewed with Gayle King, with Soledad O'Brien, Joy Reid, everybody wanted me to sit down with them. And that was a very new experience for me also. It was hard many days to do those interviews because it was so fresh. But back in January of this year, on MLK Day, my church and I put on a rally, a social justice rally. And when I spoke at that rally, I tell people, that's the moment I found my voice. When I spoke to the crowd that day, I felt empowered. And since that time, I've been committed to fighting for myself and for others and pushing the City on reform issues.

Shimon Cohen:

That's so powerful. The City really, they really messed with the wrong woman, because I know, I've been following, you're not just taking the money because that's what Chicago has historically done, is they've done this over and over and over to Black and Brown families and folks and communities. And then they do payouts, huge tax dollar payouts. You're pushing for bigger change. They really messed with the wrong woman.

Anjanette Young:

They did. Shimon, I like to tell people, some of my personal background, my grandmother was a civil rights activist in Mississippi, and she raised me in Mississippi. I lived in Mississippi until age 25. And I grew up watching my grandmother go to marches and rallies and fight for voter rights. My grandmother marched with Dr. King. And I think that's part of the reason why I went into social work, but not so much for the social justice issue, just that my grandmother raised me to serve others and to be a help to others whenever you could. I now see that I am finding my voice from all that I learned from her, all of those years ago when I watched her fight with the civil rights movement.

Anjanette Young:

And so, I tell people that between my civil rights foundation from my grandmother and being a woman of God who believes that God has given me this experience to do something bigger with it than myself, and being a social worker, is a trifecta that the City of Chicago is not ready for. Absolutely, they did mess with the wrong person.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, you've got some serious powers there, right?

Anjanette Young:

Yes, absolutely. And so, I'm going to continue to fight, and as you mentioned with the City of Chicago, they harm families and then they offer a payout. And unfortunately, most families take it for a variant of reasons. Some people just don't want the struggle of fighting with the City. Some people are living in poverty so the payout is very enticing to them and they know it can make a difference in their lives and their family lives so they take the payout. And then there are some people who don't feel that they're strong enough or feel like they have the resources to fight the City. I've been blessed to be in that situation. Financially, I'm no millionaire, but I do okay. And then I have an amazing attorney that I was able to connect with, and I have the support of my church, which is a really large support system.

Anjanette Young:

I'm fighting the City. They can't pay me off with a few dollars and sweep this under the rug. The City, I like to say, swept this under the rug for two years. They hid it, they didn't want to talk about it. They hid the emails. They tried to sanction my attorney and the media when the story was about to come out, they didn't want the story to come out. And there are so many things that my attorney has revealed and exposed the City on that they've been hiding with my case from the very beginning. So we're going to keep pushing.

Anjanette Young:

It's been two years and it's not easy, and there are days that I'm tired of fighting, and then I'm reminded that with the civil rights movement, it didn't happen overnight. My uncle tells me all the time about my grandmother and how there were times that she was tired but she continued to fight. That I have big shoes to fill and I have strong shoulders to stand on. And so, I'm just going to continue this fight no matter how long it takes.

Shimon Cohen:

The recent situation, and this is where you know things could change by the time the episode goes live, is that you've got a lawsuit going against the City. And then just recently, they've announced some reforms. But I know you've also been critical of what they're announcing. So can you speak about that?

Anjanette Young:

I can speak about that a little bit. So yes, my attorney and I, we have filed a formal lawsuit against the City of Chicago. And so, we'll see where that goes. And then the City Council of Chicago, there are aldermen that are on the City Council who support me. And so, we put out an ordinance that we're calling the Anjanette Young Ordinance, where we're asking for specific changes in legislation as it relates to how the City conducts raids in Black and Brown communities.

Anjanette Young:

So the mayor decided that she would come out before my ordinance can be approved in legislation, that she would come out with some very similar reforms. In my opinion, she was doing that as a way to kind of quash the ordinance that we are fighting for. But those reforms that she has put out are very surface, and they really don't address the problem. There are no real policies in place to address what she calls accountability. She speaks with these new reforms that she's putting in place, that officers will be held accountable. But it doesn't say what that accountability will be. It doesn't say that officers will be punished or disciplined, it just says that they will be held accountable.

Shimon Cohen:

This is the issue with police misconduct, police brutality, police killing all across the country as time and time again, there is zero accountability. So they are allowed to keep acting this way with impunity. They never have to face the music so to speak about their behavior, about their policies, about their practices.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. So with the incident that I had, there were 12 officers - 12 White men - who I encountered that night. And what we've now found out with filing our lawsuit is that five of them are repeat offenders. And so, even before I had my incident with them, they had done this multiple times. And yet, they're still working and they still have their badges, and they still have their pensions, and they continue to be available to go out in these raids and get it wrong, and traumatize families in the process.

Shimon Cohen:

That's absolutely horrific. The person that they were after was actually on an ankle monitor, and they could have found where he was if they really did their due diligence to figure that out as well, correct?

Anjanette Young:

Correct. And we found out that, and not in just my story or my incident, but in multiple incidents, where they've raided the wrong home, the person that they were looking for was either already incarcerated or never had lived at that address. For me, the person had never lived at the address, but was on an ankle monitor that was assigned to an address that was a few doors down. Our research has shown that they're not doing very much on the front end to make sure that they have the right information before they bust down someone's door.

Shimon Cohen:

Right. And then that is where it gets connected back to, they're not busting down doors of White families.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. So they're not kicking in doors or busting down doors in White neighborhoods, and they're not treating White women or White men in the same regard as they do when they kick down these doors in Black and Brown communities. Pointing guns at children, terrorizing people, ripping through people's home. Even in my incident, one of the videos that we watched, the guy points a gun at my dog and tells my dog, don't move. And my dog is a small Yorkie that's all of eight pounds. So they have no regard for the family or the person's home who they are interacting with at all. And it's so oxymoron for them to drive in cars and wear badges and uniforms that says protect and serve when they are doing nothing in their actions with these raids that protect or serve the family's homes who they've gone into.

Shimon Cohen:

Who's protecting these families from the police who are supposedly there to protect and serve?

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely no one. And that's why I'm fighting to say that this is not okay, and I'm fighting to say you have to be different. You have to be human. And I've said on several occasions, it's one thing to get it wrong, accidents happen, things fall through the cracks. But once you get on the other side of that door, how you interact with that person matters, how you interact with that person should not only be a part of your training, but also should be a part of you being human and seeing the other person as someone who is human and deserves dignity and respect.

Shimon Cohen:

One of the things that, I mean, so many things about what happened to you, when I watched it, when it first came out, really stood out to me. But one thing is you're in there trying to, you're in your home explaining to them you've got the wrong home. You're repeatedly saying you've got the wrong home, and you're obviously terrified and you're saying it, and you sound the way you feel, it's very clear. I'm not sure who it was, if it was like a captain or a sergeant, I don't know what their title is, but he repeatedly tells you to calm down.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely. There's a moment, I remember this moment, but I also, in watching the video, I'm yelling at him about you have the wrong place, you have the wrong place. What is going on? Can you please tell me what you're looking for? And he says on multiple occasions, "Ma'am, you just need to calm down." And there was a moment of frustration for me where I yell at him and I curse like how am I supposed to effing calm down when you have just kicked in my door and you're in my home and I'm telling you you have the wrong place. So even to the point of him feeling that it was appropriate to tell me to calm down in a very chaotic moment where the chaos they've caused, and now he wants me to calm down and have a conversation with him.

Shimon Cohen:

It's just so unbelievable but it's believable because it happens, and it happens all the time, unfortunate- not unfortunately, we could argue that this is business as usual for them.

Anjanette Young:

What I've found in this experience and fighting this experience is how deep-rooted the corruption is in the City of Chicago. I've lived in Chicago over, my son is 25 so about 25 years now, I've lived in Chicago as an adult. And you hear the stories about City corruption and politics and mayors and bad cops. But I've had a firsthand experience on how deep-rooted the corruption is in the City of Chicago. And it amazes me how deep it goes. And it amazes me that in 2021, we continue to live in a City that allows for corruption under an African American mayor, under an African American police superintendent that does not respond in a way that would help the Black and Brown community.

Shimon Cohen:

So it's not just about diversity and inclusion.

Anjanette Young:

Absolutely not. I had a conversation, I had a personal conversation with the mayor, a one on one just myself and my attorney and her and one attorney. And I said to her, what accountability looks like for me is actually changing the rules from the bottom up. And what I said to her is that you can put policy in place at the top level, and you can have these policies and rules in place. But the people on the bottom, the boots on the ground, the officers who are going into the home, if there is not a cultural change and shift within them, the policy is just a piece of paper that goes in a file cabinet. The officers who are the ones that are interacting with the public have to have a commitment to want to change the deep rooted culture of the Chicago Police Department.

Shimon Cohen:

What do you think it's going to take for that type of commitment?

Anjanette Young:

Because in the City of Chicago it's so deep-rooted, the culture shift will take time. However, I think with the experience that I've had and the experience that the City is going to have with me, that it will begin to make the change. Even if I'm able to uproot one part of the corruption in the City of Chicago, that's a win. That's a win to move the needle forward, to move us in the right direction. But it's going to take commitment from every level, from activists like myself, to the officers who walk the beat, to the commanders who do the roll call and give instructions before officers go out, to the superintendent and the mayor and the governor and the senator in the legislature. Everyone has to be committed to the change in order for there to be real change.

Shimon Cohen:

What do you think of some of the calls that are out there and also other cities because this happens all over the country, for just there to be an end to no-knock raids?

Anjanette Young:

So it's interesting that you asked that question because we just had this conversation as a relates to the ordinance that we are pushing forward in my name. And then the City came out with their policy reform as it relates to the warrant. So it's one thing to say that we're not going to have no-knock warrants. So no-knock warrants means that when the raid team comes to your home, they can just hit the door and automatically come in. That's what a no-knock warrant is. But a warrant that requires you to knock means that you should knock at the door and allow for someone to come to the door and speak to them. And then conduct your search warrant.

Anjanette Young:

What I found in my experience and other experiences as it relates to the City of Chicago, and when you watch the body cam footage from the night that they entered my home, they knocked on the door, but they knocked and didn't hit. So they're knocking but they're not allowing the person time to come to the door. So it doesn't matter if the warrant is knock or no-knock, if they're just gonna bust in as soon as they arrive. So you'll see on the body cam footage where they do a quick knock knock knock Chicago Police Department, and then immediately slammed the door with a battering ram. There is no distinction between the two if the officers aren't going to actually follow through with what it means to knock on their door and allow someone to answer.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, I really appreciate you speaking to that because I think also a lot of people who will be listening, that's something they'll see, because that's one of the things you first see when you start learning about this right, is these calls to put an end to the no-knock. But if they're just getting around that by a quick knock, and then boom, the door goes down, it's the same situation.

Anjanette Young:

It absolutely is the same situation, and I'm learning that from my own personal experience, and even watching the body cam footage from the night that they entered my home, because you do see them knock on the door, and then you see them immediately hit the door as well. It's a moot point to no longer have no-knock warrants if they're just going to knock in hit on a door and don't give people an opportunity to respond.

Anjanette Young:

I've said in other interviews that I've done, because of the type of person that I am, who have never really had any experiences, negative or positive, with the police department being at my home door, that had they knocked on the door and allowed me to get dressed and answer it, I would have let them come in and would have had a conversation with them. Who are you looking for? I don't know that person. You want to look around? Sure, look around. I would have allowed that if they would have given me an opportunity to do so because I had nothing to hide, and I knew that the person that they were looking for was not anyone that I was associated with.

Shimon Cohen:

So for people who are listening, how can they support the work you're doing? How can they get involved if they want to? What are some next steps there?

Anjanette Young:

So if you're in the city of Chicago or in the state of Illinois and you want to support or get involved, there will be probably in a couple of weeks by the time this airs in April, there will be a petition to move forward the Anjanette Young Ordinance, which in the ordinance, we're asking for specific legislation and policy change as it relates to how the City of Chicago does search warrants in people's home. You can follow me on my social media to hear more about that. I am Anjanette Young on all of the social media platforms, you can find me there. And so, I would say follow me and share what I'm sharing, and speak to your local legislator about the petition and about the ordinance that we're trying to push forward. Feel free to reach out to me on any social media platform, I'll have a conversation with you. If you have ideas or you just want to support, I absolutely encourage it.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, and I'll put the links to your social media sites on the show notes and on the Doin' The Work website as well with this episode. So people can click right there to get that as well. And what about folks outside of Chicago and outside of Illinois?

Anjanette Young:

People who are outside of Chicago, Illinois, I would say keep it in the news, share the stories all around. Share what's happening here in Chicago. This is a national story now, so, talk about it. My company, Cafe Social Work, I work with new social workers across all 50 states. And so, I provide tutoring and mentoring and coaching for new social workers. Social workers who are preparing for their licensure exam, I provide tutoring and coaching for that. And you can find me at cafesocialwork.com as it relates to those services. And so, I would encourage people to check me out on my website.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah, definitely, I hope people will. It's just incredible that you're still doing all of that while you're going through this. You're so powerful.

Anjanette Young:

Well, thank you for that. It is not easy, but the work that I'm doing with my business was very intentional that I didn't allow this situation to get in the way. So, I started my company, I physically launched my company in March of 2019, just a couple of weeks after this incident happened.

Shimon Cohen:

Wow.

Anjanette Young:

So when this incident happened in February of 2019, I was a few weeks away from launching my business. And so, just deep into the work, getting stuff put together, websites, and print materials, and marketing and all of these things. And then this incident happens a couple of weeks before my launch. It stifled me for a little bit, but then I was committed to not allow it to get in the way. So I launched my business anyway, and I've been very focused on building my business, and my business is now two years old. The beauty of it is doing this work, helping other people, actually allows me and gives me comfort, and allows my attorney to do what he needs to do on the legal side. I can keep some part of my life normal.

Shimon Cohen:

Yeah. You've really taken a horrific experience and transformed it into a catalyst for change in a way that, like you said, you were not focused on before this happened. And I just think that's phenomenal.

Anjanette Young:

Well, thank you. I would like to think that my grandmother, she passed away some years ago, but I would like to think that she's very proud of the work that I'm doing right now. And she is definitely the shoulders that I stand on. She's definitely my strength in the moments when I'm weak and I cry myself to sleep at night. It's her that keeps pushing me and guiding me and given me the strength that I need to do this work.

Shimon Cohen:

That's amazing. I want the whole social work profession, and beyond the social work profession to know about you, to follow what you're up to, to support you, to really look to you as someone who's a leader in our larger community of social workers. And so, that's all part of why I wanted, I'm so glad we connected and you were able to come on here. And just before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to say while you've got the mic?

Anjanette Young:

I want to say thank you. The one thing that I can say about this experience, as bad as it has been, I have not really experienced any negative pushback from anyone. And we know how the public can be sometimes. And so, I've received nothing but support and love from the larger community, the social work community ,and then the larger community as a whole. And I'm grateful for that. I'm thankful for their support, I'm thankful for the kind words. I'm thankful that people can see my pain and my experience and empathize with me in a way that allows me to fight this fight another day or for a little bit longer.

Shimon Cohen:

I'm so grateful, number one, that you're here, that you're still here, and that you and I have connected, that you came on here, that you're doing the work in the community. Because this is called Doin' The Work, so I always like to end with guests saying, thank you for doin' the work in the community because the world is a better place, the community is a better place directly thanks to the work you're doing.

Anjanette Young:

Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to speak to your community. Thank you for creating, developing and continuing to guide this podcast. It's needed, and I appreciate that I can have a moment to share my story, but also have a moment to appreciate you and your community for all of the work that's being done.

Shimon Cohen:

Thank you.

Anjanette Young:

Thank you for having me.

Shimon Cohen:

Thank you for listening to Doin' The Work: Frontline Stories of Social Change. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Please follow on Twitter and leave positive reviews on iTunes. If you're interested in being a guest or know someone who is doing great work, please get in touch. Thank you for doing real work to make this world a better place.