Opportunistic Lawsuit

Another scandal that just won't die:

• On a summer evening six years ago, Jose Fematt and his younger sister did what most kids do as the day fades — they changed into their pajamas and planted themselves on the front-room couch to watch television.
  
  Outside the three large windows of the first-floor apartment, Jose, 13, who was baby-sitting his sister, heard a commotion and saw the glow of flashlights in the dark. Suddenly, the family's apartment door crashed open, and plainclothes Chicago police officers barged in with their guns drawn and yelling at the stunned children, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
  
  The officers were part of the Special Operations Section, or SOS, an elite squad that investigated drugs and guns. They were also rogue cops who were later convicted of terrorizing numerous residents with home invasions, illegal searches and trumped-up charges in one of the department's most infamous scandals. The unit was disbanded in 2007.

So the incident occurred in 2005, the unit was disbanded in 2007, anyone doing jail time finished serving their sentences two and three years ago aside from the "ringleaders." The rest of the case is stagnating six years after the fact and this lawsuit just gets filed now?

This is telling:

• The family didn't report the break-in at the time because they were so frightened, according to their lawyer, Torreya Hamilton, who declined for Fematt, now 19, to be interviewed because she hasn't even let city attorneys question him yet.
  
  Fematt's account came to light only after Chagolla filed his own federal lawsuit. In January the city contacted Fematt after he was identified as a potential witness in court filings. Concerned about what the city wanted, the family contacted an attorney. What they learned was that Fematt could still file a lawsuit because he was a minor at the time of the break-in. The two-year time limit to file a civil suit had begun just a year earlier when Fematt turned 18.

We aren't excusing dirty cops doing home invasions on dope stash houses, but this has all the hallmarks of a gold digging lawsuit.