Unwarranted

Imagine you’re celebrating your child’s fourth birthday party inside your home. There’s a chocolate cake on the table and in the next room, a group of kids are playing Duck Duck Goose. Suddenly, cops burst in, guns drawn and dropping profanities, claiming that ecstasy is being sold from this location. It turns out the police have raided the wrong residence because the warrant was incorrect. At least a dozen families in the Chicago area had a similar experience, according to a yearlong report by journalist Dave Savini of the CBS 2 Investigators team. Through exhaustive interviews, surveillance of video footage from nearby buildings, and hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests, Savini uncovered findings that range from careless to callous. Many police weren’t wearing cameras during raids or did not turn them on; some officers hadn’t performed very basic tasks including Google searches to find out how many apartments were in a dwelling. As a result of this exhaustive, moving report, the Governor of Illinois signed the Peter Mendez Act into law. Named for a boy whose home was wrongly raided, the legislation instructs police departments to train officers on how to de-escalate force if children are present during a raid. For its tenacity, thoroughness, and impact, CBS Chicago wins a Peabody Award.