Activists Want US Prosecutors to Act: Burge- Chicago Police Tortured Hundreds of Black Men

CHICAGO (CBS 2)  -- Legal and activist groups claim that a special prosecutor's probe into allegations of police torture under former police Commander Jon Burge was insufficient.
A highly critical report endorsed by more than 200 groups was released on Tuesday morning. The groups are petitioning for a federal investigation, and believe it's a very real possibility the U.S. Attorney could act where special prosecutors did not.

 Dozens of defendants have claimed Burge and his subordinates in South Side detective units tortured them into giving false confessions in the 1970s and 80s.

 "They handcuffed me behind my back. While one officer held me, the other one punched me and kicked me," said exonerated Death Row inmate Madison Hobley.

 Last July, special prosecutors Robert D. Boyle and Edward J. Egan released a report after their four-year, $6 million investigation. They concluded that torture did happen, but the statute of limitations had run out for any possible state criminal charges.

 In the report, released on the fifth anniversary of the appointment of the special prosecutors, the activists and attorneys say merely acknowledging that torture occurred is not enough.

 Bowman said the major problems included:

 •   A lack of criminal indictments of anyone in the case;
 •   The failure to examine responsibility of the Cook County state's attorney's office that was then run by Mayor Richard M. Daley;
 •   And not acknowleding the systemic and racist nature of the torture.

 "There were no criminal charges announced by Egan and Boyle of any of the perpetrators of torture at Area 2," said Locke Bowman of the Northwestern University School of Law. "It was racist in nature. These were white police officers brutalizing African-American citizens of Chicago."

 Bowman and a team of lawyers, researchers and community activists have been reviewing Boyle and Egan's investigation for the past nine months, and they call it a failure.

 They believe there needs to be another probe to generate a criminal indictment and to address what they call a cover-up of alleged torture by officials who could have made a difference, such as now-Mayor Richard M. Daley, who was Cook County State's Attorney at the time.

 "It is a great problem for our county and for our criminal justice system that abuse of this nature can occur and be brought to the attention of the highest officials in the state's attorney's office – the person who is currently the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley" and no action be taken, Bowman said.

 In an interview with CBS 2 earlier Tuesday, Bowman also said the City Council should compensate the alleged torture victims, and there should be a probe into why the special prosecutors spent so much time and money.

 "It's our community. This is a stain on our history," Bowman said. "Finally and ultimately, something needs to be done about it that's definitive."

 When the report was released, Boyle said while the investigation had concluded that torture had occurred, it was impossible to prosecute anyone in the case.

 "Clearly, the statute of limitations as to any offenses that may have arisen as a result of this violence or any conduct thereafter have all long since passed," Boyle said last July.

 Burge was first accused of torture by cop killer Andrew Wilson in 1982. Wilson was so badly beaten after capture he was sent to the jail hospital instead of a cell.

 Wilson won a civil case against the city in the alleged torture allegations, which led to Burge’s termination in 1993.

 In all, 146 African American men accused Burge and his subordinates of torture, which included beatings, use of cattle prods, suffocations with typewriter covers, and use of a black box to electrically shock genitals, ears, and lips.

 Allegations against Burge and other detectives have been a hot-button issue in Chicago for several years. Some have even argued that the torture claims and other allegations against police are so severe as to be a mark against the city for the Olympics.

 In a letter to the Chicago Free Press, the Rev. Martin Deppe wrote, "Unless we as a city find a way to hold our police accountable to the law, with a truly independent civilian review board, for example, no one is safe from rogue cops who expect protection within the system."

 But Burge's attorney has said the former detective commander never tortured anyone. Burge now lives in Florida.

 At noon Tuesday, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty planned to hold a rally about the Burge case at City Hall. Family members of alleged police torture victims were scheduled to attend and call on Mayor Daley to take responsibility for his actions when he was state's attorney.