The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved a $2.9 million settlement with Anjanette Young over a botched police raid of her home. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The settlement, about three times the offer Young rejected months ago, was unanimously approved Wednesday, nearly a year to the day after that shocking bodycam video was aired.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has acknowledged that “a lot of trust in me” has been “breached” by her Law Department’s efforts to conceal video of the botched February 2019 raid on the wrong home that forced Anjanette Young to stand naked and humiliated before a dozen male Chicago Police officers.

On Wednesday, nearly a year to the day after that shocking video was aired, what Lightfoot has called the “healing” process began for Young, the mayor and Chicago.

The City Council unanimously approved a $2.9 million settlement that’s nearly three times the amount Young and her attorneys rejected months ago.

Before the final vote, Ald. Maria Hadden (48th) commended Young for her “courage” and for “working so hard” to reform a broken process of executing search warrants. Hadden argued that the $2.9 million settlement would “hold up our end” in “admitting we were wrong and that the city did something wrong.”

“We need to fix the system and fix the policies so we don’t keep making the same mistakes,” Hadden said.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) agreed, telling her colleagues, “Ms. Young wasn’t the first. And I pray to God she’s the last.”

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Taylor pointed out that Lightfoot’s City Council allies have refused to hold a hearing on an ordinance championed by African American female alderpersons that includes more sweeping search warrant reforms than the general order proposed by Lightfoot and Police Supt. David Brown.

“A lot of this, she’s inherited. But when it comes to reform, she has the ability and the duty to do something different and I just don’t see it. So, I don’t know how this heels her political career,” Taylor said of Lightfoot.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) argued even $2.9 million was too low for the “re-victimization that the city did to her over the last few months.”

In June, Lopez joined Taylor in using a parliamentary maneuver to delay Lightfoot’s appointment of Corporation Counsel Celia Meza to protest Meza’s decision to file a motion to dismiss Young’s lawsuit after the social worker refused to accept a $1 million settlement, which her attorneys branded a “low-ball” offer.

“We’ve given more money to families of gang members than we are to Ms. Young,” Lopez, one of Lightfoot’s most outspoken City Council critics, said Wednesday.

Although the settlement brings closure to Young, Lopez predicted that the political fallout for Lightfoot will continue.

“This is something that happened in a different administration. All she had to do is get out of the way and let the investigation run its course. But her instincts told her to keep this quiet. Her instincts failed her,” Lopez said.

“She forgets that she’s not working for a client trying to win a case for someone who hired her. She is the mayor of Chicago who needs to make sure the public has full faith and confidence in our government when we make mistakes. By hiring someone from the outside [to investigate]. By trying to shield the facts of the case. By refusing to make things public, she doesn’t inspire confidence and trust.”

Meza told the Finance Committee this week that Chicago police officers were “executing a valid, legal search warrant” when they raided Young’s home in February 2019, but it turned out to be based on false information that a male with a gun was living at that address.

Although the raid continued for roughly 40 minutes, Meza said Young was forced to stand in a “complete state of undress” for just 16 seconds.

A jacket was then placed around her shoulders for thirteen seconds, followed by a blanket. Ten minutes into the raid, Young was allowed to get fully dressed after a female officer arrived on the scene.

Because a judge let stand a “willful and wanton” count against officers involved in the botched raid — even after dismissing five other counts of Young’s lawsuit — Meza said that would open the door to “very broad discovery” of the dozen officers involved in the raid that could cost Chicago taxpayers a fortune.

The city’s case would be further damaged by the fact that the Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended the firing of one officer involved in the raid and suspensions for five others, Meza said.

For those reasons and more, Meza argued that taking the case to trial was too big a gamble.

“It is not unreasonable to assume that there would be a request for anywhere between $13 million and $16 million. Thirteen million for every officer and the city that was involved in execution of this search warrant. [Or] it could be $16 million for the 16 seconds that she was left in a complete state of undress,” Meza has said.

Lightfoot has been under fire for her changing story about what she knew and when she knew it about the botched raid.

The mayor initially insisted she knew nothing about the raid until WBBM-TV (Channel 2) aired the video in December 2020.

After reviewing internal emails, the mayor admitted she learned about the raid in November 2019, when a top aide warned Lightfoot about a “pretty bad wrongful raid” by Chicago police.

“I have a lot of questions about this one,” she wrote at the time to top aides.

The mayor has emphatically denied knowing anything about her Law Department’s efforts to block the CBS2 from airing bodycam video of the raid. To underscore the point, she forced the resignation of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, a longtime friend who served with Lightfoot in the U.S. attorney’s office.

Last month, now-retired Inspector General Joe Ferguson said Lightfoot’s decision to hire an outside law firm to investigate the raid and use attorney-client privilege to conceal details of that parallel investigation made it impossible for him to recommend disciplinary action against any city employees.

Ferguson characterized the Lightfoot administration’s handling of the Anjanette Young video as a “remarkable, troubling closing of a circle.”

“It brings us back where we were five or six years ago and where her career got its jump-start. Yet the city is engaged in similar activity — and in this instance, with respect to a living victim,” he said.

Lightfoot is a former Police Board president who, along with Ferguson, co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability in the furor after the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

The City Council also signed off on three other settlements totaling $2.15 million tied to allegations of police wrongdoing.

The largest of those settlements — for $1.2 million — goes to the family of 14-year-old Pedro Rios Jr., who was shot by an officer who chased him through an alley on July 4, 2014, then kicked the teenager’s body after he was shot.

Lopez complained that Chicago taxpayers were once again being asked to “pay for the lifestyle choices” of a young man who was affiliated with a gang “terrorizing” Chicago neighborhoods.

“We have to, at some point, say ‘Enough,'” Lopez said before the 36-to-12 vote.

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Music is incorporated into therapy for patients with Alzheimer’s disease to engage the patient in the present moment, with the hope that it might have a beneficial effect on disease progression. | stock.adobe.com

There’s a robust body of research into the therapeutic uses of music for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Dear Doctors: My uncle has Alzheimer’s disease. He goes through these awful phases where he’s agitated and afraid. We’ve noticed that music calms him, especially when it’s something from when he was young. Why would that be?

Answer: You’ve had the good fortune to discover a therapeutic practice that reaches back at least to the ancient Greeks. Aristotle and Plato believed that music could soothe the troubled soul, and the physicians of their time employed musical instruments to induce sleep and ease mental disturbances.

Today, there’s a robust body of research into therapeutic uses of music for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Due to the unique way this type of dementia progresses, the areas of the brain that are linked to musical memory remain mostly free from damage. This allows Alzheimer’s patients to recognize and respond to music. This has proven helpful in managing periodic episodes of distress and agitation.

When researchers in Canada played new music for a patient with advanced Alzheimer’s, she didn’t respond. But when they played melodies she was familiar with, she sang along. She remembered all of the words, and she continued to accurately sing the songs even after the recordings ended.

Other researchers studying individuals with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease linked listening to music that was personally meaningful with improvements in neuroplasticity — the ability of the brain to adapt in response to new experiences. Writing in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the researchers said they found this to be particularly true when the person felt a deep connection to the music that was played.

Music is indeed incorporated into therapy for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. It has been used to engage the patient in the present moment and with the hope it might have a beneficial effect on disease progression.

When connecting with your uncle through music, start by eliminating any competing sounds, such as a TV or radio, which can be confusing. Choose music he knows and loves and that evokes happy memories. Singing along, clapping or even dancing can enrich the experience for both of you.

If your uncle’s mood changes, be ready to switch songs or end the session. And be careful to avoid overstimulation. Keep things fun, easy and manageable.

As emerging research suggests, music could be a therapeutic pathway to benefit cognition.

Dr. Eve Glazier and Dr. Elizabeth Ko are internists at UCLA Health.

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It may surprise you to learn that I was a mediocre math student when I was in high school.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it. And when my brain doesn’t want to do something, my brain throws that something overboard.

At the same time, I had figured out a winning hack for well-received science projects: inventing my own baseball metrics. I realized I could sit down and happily spend an evening auditioning different statistical formulas and equations… as long as they related to sports.

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But if math only related to a textbook, I was debilitatingly disinterested. And so, to keep my GPA at an agreeable threshold, I abdicated my AP status in math.

The irony is that today, in most rooms I’m viewed as being the best at math. (But to be accurate, it’s more that I’m the fastest at doing math.)

Because from age 15 on, my math brain primarily focused on areas I enjoyed: sports statistics (and music/sound, but that’s another, even more willfully esoteric story.) As soon as I made that switch, my math brain flourished.

Which leads us to today. And the area my math brain makes the fastest, unconscious calculations?

Finding Hidden Value in fantasy basketball.

Hidden Value n.: the difference between a player’s perceived market value versus their actual value.

We’re at the stage of the season where quantifying Hidden Value is an achievable task. Because at about 30 games in, we have enough sample size to reliably compare the difference between a player’s ADP and their current standing on the Player Rater.

The overachieving Darius Garland provides a good example.

Garland’s ADP is about 85. He’s 27th on the Player Rater. So when trying to quantify Garland’s Hidden Value, you can create a baseline with the 58-slot gap between his perceived value (85 ADP) and actual value (27 PR).

As shorthand in my head, I will boil this down further by converting those 58 draft slots into rounds (for a 10-team league.) And thankfully, my overpopulated prefrontal cortex knows where my bread is buttered. So, although I have trouble instantly recalling The Current Mrs. Cregan’s middle name… I will remember Darius Garland carries around six rounds of baseline hidden value.

(It’s “Anne,” btw. I’m like 85% sure it’s “Anne.”)

But then I will adjust this baseline further because Garland’s overall production is borderline elite. Because he’s now a top-30 player on the Rater. So Garland’s high-round value carries more weight. It means more to jump from 85 ADP to 27 PR than going from 125 ADP to 67 PR.

(I used to generate a Jimmy Johnson-style draft board, where I’d sit down and compute the relative value of each slot. Then I had children.)

So in my head, I add a round of Hidden Value for each round within the top 40 on the Rater. So at present, I file Garland away with seven rounds of Hidden Value.

Another quick method of getting a snapshot of Hidden Value? Look at how rostered a player is. Garland is only rostered in about 91 percent of leagues. A top-30 player sitting on the wire in one of 10 leagues? This depicts Garland’s Hidden Value. It says that in less competitive leagues, Garland is essentially a streamer.

In my head, Garland and Miles Bridges are currently tied for the most Hidden Value in Fantasyland.

And even after I factor in several other key Cregan differentiators, they remain in a dead heat.

Let’s talk about those differentiators because they’re inexact sciences. I’m going off of historical sources of bias.

Time generates one bias.

Start by comparing a player’s ADP versus their Player Rater ranking. If a player drafted at 40 is 20 on the Player Rater? They were carrying about two rounds of hidden value.

What do I mean “were carrying?” That 20-slot difference is the same today as was on draft night… right?

Wrong.

Because as a player continues to overperform or underperform versus their ADP, the marketplace’s perception of that player shifts over time. And hidden value begins to shrink.

If I’d offered you Bradley Beal for Bridges on Veteran’s Day? No-brainer. A first-rounder for a ninth-rounder? You’d have done that deal in a heartbeat.

If I offered it today? You’d take a few extra beats. Bridges is delivering third-round value. Beal is playing like a fifth-rounder.

But because Beal is an All-Star with 30 PPG upside? Admit it: you’d be a little more tempted to roll the dice. Because nothing — nothing — manipulates perceived fantasy value more than a historically high points per game average.

I’m about to point out some players carrying a high amount of hidden value. But first, I’ll detail the other differentiating biases that drive hidden value.

And no. I’m not going to turn around and tell you to trade for Rudy Gobert. Gobert is delivering late-first roundish value against a late third-round ADP. He was drafted relatively high to begin with, so his hidden value is far less at this juncture in the season.

But what about Jonas Valanciunas?

He’s actually ahead of Gobert on the Player Rater. He averages more points per game… but still sits below 20 PPG, the cosmic threshold for being labeled as a “scorer” or “first option.” (So does Gobert.)

I offer that Valanciunas carries more hidden value than Gobert. A lot more.

Valanciunas provides a working example of multiple dynamics of bias that generate extra hidden value.

How can I tell he’s carrying Hidden Value? Easy. Valanciunas — as of this writing, the 10th-best player in fantasy basketball — is only rostered in 96.7% of leagues! The 10th-best player in fantasy is only rostered five percent more than Zion Williamson…who may not play a single minute this season.

So primary bias: low PPG. Secondary bias: Valanciunas’ eighth-round ADP.

Even in more competitive leagues, with more experienced managers, Valanciunas’ trade value will remain depressed due to that late-round ADP. Because history tells experience managers that a late-round player outplaying his ADP by over five rounds must be a sell-high candidate.

This is especially true with a known veteran like Valanciunas. It’s easier to imagine a player on his first contract suddenly taking a leap. But with a nine-year veteran? That size of a leap becoming their new normal is tougher to envision.

And because experienced managers are programmed to sell high on overperforming ADP players? That drives up Hidden Value. (I find the pressure to sell high is often more about looking smart than playing smart.)

Ok. So non-gaudy scoring. Low ADP. What else drives up Valanciunas’ Hidden Value? Playing in New Orleans.

Smaller market teams tend to be lower-profile within the media landscape. So that lower profile drives up hidden value. Conversely, players on teams that end up heavily discussed on a nightly basis lose hidden value.

(Another reason why smaller market West Coast teams generate more hidden value: playing late games means their games aren’t as widely reported. This used to mean more 20 years ago, pre-social media, but the disparity still exists.)

Every Milwaukee Buck not named Giannis Antetokounmpo is a prime example of this dynamic. Khris Middleton used to be a perennial lock to outperform his ADP. Then Milwaukee won it all. And extended playoff runs and championships… also dent Hidden Value. Playoff heroics kill Hidden Value.

And today? Middleton is underperforming by about four rounds.

(But shhh… it’s kind of a secret.)

Middleton is secretly underperforming because his per-game value is relatively high. In per-game valuations, Middleton doing just fine. He is only underperforming his ADP by a round.

Which leads me to the final reason why Valanciunas is undervalued: total production versus per-game production.

Middleton’s only played 21 games this season. Valanciunas has played 29. In terms of total production, Valanciunas is outperforming Middleton by seven-to-eight rounds. But the gap narrows when comparing using per-game valuation.

IMO, the total vs. per-game gap in perceived value is tied for the third-biggest driver of Hidden Value.

It doesn’t matter if two players deliver relatively similar per-game fantasy value if there’s a disparity in games played. If Player A plays 80 games and Player B only 60 games? That 20-game gap means Player A delivered three to four rounds more value throughout the season.

The total vs. per-game dynamic is tied for third with efficiency-based vs. volume-based production.

We are conditioned to prize players that score. Scoring is fun. It is the stat that determines the outcome of games. (My vote would be Real Plus/Minus btw.) And if they can’t score? Shot blockers are fun. 3-point specialists used to be more fun, but now everyone is a 3-point specialist.

Rebounds aren’t fun. Neither is a high free throw percentage. And those happen to be Valanciunas’ two biggest categories of overproduction. And he finally added a 3-point shot… at the precise moment in NBA history where everyone has added a 3-point shot.

Do you know what stats are scarce this season? Free throw production and rebounds. So Valanciunas’ effectiveness in delivering what I call “off-road” value provides the final boost to Valanciunas’ hidden value.

When it comes to hidden value, Valanciunas has just about every dynamic working in his favor. So-so PPG. Low ADP. Veteran. Small market team that is likely lottery-bound. Higher total value than per-game value. And “off-road” categorical value.

All of which adds up to why Jonas Valanciunas could be the most underrated top-10 player in the history of fantasy basketball.

And now, here’s what you came for: a quick list of some other players I’ve identified as carrying high Hidden Value.

Jarrett Allen
Anthony Edwards
Myles Turner
Jaren Jackson Jr.
Gordon Hayward
Gary Trent Jr.
Jordan Poole
Mo Bamba
Tyrese Haliburton
Desmond Bane
Scottie Barnes
Derrick White
Jerami Grant
Evan Mobley
Wendell Carter Jr
Tyrese Maxey
Cole Anthony
Jarred Vanderbilt
Pat Connaughton
Franz Wagner
Jalen Brunson
Ivica Zubac
Alex Caruso
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Robert Williams III

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Stagg’s TJ Griffin with family members during Signing Day. | Kirsten Stickney/For the Sun-Times

After the Chargers finished an 0-9 fall season, Illinois coaches invited Griffin to campus for an unofficial visit.

TJ Griffin is not your typical Power Five football recruit.

The Stagg defensive back grew up dreaming of a college basketball career. He played one year of youth football as a fourth-grader, then didn’t put on pads again till his sophomore year.

An injury limited his playing time that year, then COVID pushed his junior season to this spring. Add to that the fact Griffin played for a down-on-its-luck program in the shadows of SouthWest Suburban heavyweights Lockport and Lincoln-Way East as well as Catholic powers Marist, Bother Rice and more.

Oh, and Griffin began his senior season with no stars and no offers.

But none of that mattered on Wednesday morning when Griffin signed a letter of intent to Illinois before family and friends in Stagg’s gym,

“This morning I woke up with a smile on my face [thinking,] ‘Today, history is being made,'” Griffin said. “‘I’m going to change the direction of my family’s life. I’m going to start doing bigger things.’ It’s all starting to sink in slowly.”

It is indeed a heady feeling for someone who is believed to be the first major college football player from Stagg since Joe Ganz went to Nebraska nearly 20 years ago, and the first Power Five scholarship player in program history.

It’s only in the last few weeks that all the stars aligned for Griffin, a consensus three-star recruit rated 35th among Illinois seniors in the 247Sports.com composite rankings.

After the Chargers finished an 0-9 fall season, Illinois coaches invited Griffin to campus for an unofficial visit.

A couple weeks after that, Illini defensive coordinator Ryan Walters came to Stagg to watch Griffin at basketball tryouts. A day later, Illinois offered a scholarship and Griffin committed the day after that. Illinois was his only scholarship offer.

“So it was all very quick,” Griffin said. “The entire year has been crazy. And that month of just everything happening back to back to back was just surreal. But it’s a dream come true.”

But the dream did not come true without plenty of effort on Griffin’s part, according to Stagg coach Colt Nero.

“Over this last summer, he worked his tail off in the weight room with us and I think he’s really grown into his body,” Nero said. “He’s put some serious size on since last year.”

Griffin is 6-2 and 200 pounds, but getting bigger hasn’t slowed him down.

Kirsten Stickney/For the Sun-Times
Stagg’s TJ Griffin holds up a banner to show his commitment to play football for Illinois.

“He’s very explosive,” Nero said. “His first two steps are incredible. And he also has that breakaway speed.”

There’s more to Giffin than his physical gifts, significant as they are. Though the record may not show it — the Chargers were 0-15 this calendar year — Nero said there’s no doubt Griffin leaves Stagg football better than he found it.

“TJ has changed the trajectory of the Stagg High School football program,” Nero said. “The bar has been raised.”

That didn’t just happen in the weight room. Nero also noted the little things Griffin did, like giving teammates a ride to practice, not to mention the example he set by going to his neighborhood school.

“It trickles down into the community and the middle schools and the younger kids that you don’t have to go somewhere else,” Nero said. “You don’t have to go to one of the [other] schools in the area because they’re telling you … ‘We’re gonna hook you up and get you where you want to go.’

“We talk a lot about being part of a family. And I think it’s important that kids go to school with their friends. That’s exactly what TJ did. And now he’s proven to everybody that you can [go Division I]. You’ve just got to work hard.”

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PAWS Chicago, the city’s largest No Kill humane organization, hosted its 20th Annual Fur Ball on Friday, November 12.Read More

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With just four games left this season, the story lines surrounding the Chicago Bears revolve around potential changes at head coach and general manager this offseason. But a report on Wednesday suggests that those might not be the only changes in the future.

Dan Weiderer wrote an excellent piece in the Chicago Tribune on the state of the Bears and the pending changes. In the article he notes that Bears President and CEO Ted Phillips could distance himself from the football operations part of the organization, something fans have been clamoring for to happen for years now.

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Cook County Criminal Courts, 2601 S. California Blvd. | Sun-Times file

Prosecutors say a bullet casing recovered from the expressway shooting was traced to the gun used in the other attack.

A Gary man accused of a fatal shooting on Interstate 57 this past summer has now been charged with killing another man weeks earlier in West Englewood.

Prosecutors say a bullet casing recovered from the expressway shooting was traced to the gun used in the killing of Darrion Stokes, who was shot June 10 as he stood next to a car with two young children in the back seat.

Angelo Baldwin was charged with first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder in the West Englewood attack. He was already facing a murder charge from the shooting death of a 21-year-old man after a minor accident on I-57 on July 1.

Baldwin is accused of firing at least nine shots from a blue SUV and hitting Stokes in the chest as he talked to a woman who was in a car with the children in the 6500 block of South Claremont Avenue.

The SUV sped north down Claremont Avenue, and more shots were fired but no one was hit, prosecutors said,

Stokes was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman in the car grazed on her finger. The children were not hurt.

The SUV, located with the hold of police surveillance cameras, was found to have been stolen from a gas station a day earlier, prosecutors said. Baldwin can be seen getting into the driver’s seat of the SUV about 35 minutes before the shooting, prosecutors said.

A license plate reader recorded the SUV heading in the direction of shooting after leaving the gas station, prosecutors said. After the shooting, video shows the SUV headed toward 87th Street and Vincennes Avenue, where it was involved in a minor vehicle crash.

Baldwin can be seen on surveillance video running from the accident, a gun in his hand, prosecutors said. A cup found inside the SUV contained Baldwin’s DNA, prosecutors said.

On July 10, prosecutors say Baldwin was driving another SUV on Interstate 57 when he was involved in a minor crash at Wentworth Avenue.

When he and the other driver pulled over to exchange information, Baldwin demanded that the person give him cash to pay for the damage. The two began to argue, and Baldwin allegedly shot the person, then got back into the SUV and drove away, leaving his wallet at the scene, prosecutors said.

Baldwin was arrested days later in Tennessee. In the meantime, a casing at the scene linked Baldwin to the West Englewood attack, prosecutors said.

Baldwin is being held without bond and is due back in court Jan. 3.

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