GROUP ASKS NEW INVESTIGATION
OF CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE
CHICAGO, April 24, 2007

A report by a team of over one hundred and fifty Chicago lawyers,
researchers, educators, and religious and civic organizations has requested a new investigation of the handling of the Jon Burge police torture scandal.

Speaking on behalf of the coalition at a press conference at Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, Locke Bowman, legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center, called upon Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice, the United Nations, and the Cook County Board to open new investigations of Chicago police torture under former police Lt. Jon Burge.

Group presenting report critical of Burge torture Prosecution.  L to R. Kurt Feuer, attorney for torture victim Madison Hobley; Madison Hobley, Joey Mogul, People’s Law; Andrea Lyon, Dean, Clinical Studies, DePaul Law; Locke Bowman, Legal Director McArthur Justice Center; G. Flint Taylor, People’s Law; Mary Power, named petitioner for appointment of special prosecutor; Rob Warden, Exec Dir. Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern School of Law; Included but not shown in photo- Bernadine Dohrn, Children and Family Justice Center and Steve Salzman, National Lawyers Guild. Photo by Tony Kelly

Bowman presented the group’s 150 page report examining in detail what it called "the failed investigation" by special prosecutor Edward J. Egan on
police torture in Chicago by and under the authority of Burge.

Audience and news organizations covering the presentation at Northwestern University Law School’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, home of the McArthur Justice Center. Photo by Tony Kelly

The report examined in detail both the history of the several decades of
torture by Burge and of the work of the special prosecutor.

The systematic torture to obtain confessions occurred over several
decades beginning in the seventies.

Lt. Burge’s practice of torture during that period was apparently well-known in law enforcement circles at the time and has since been documented by the office of the special prosecutor, During much of the period covering the torture Chicago’s current Mayor, Richard J. Daley, was Cook County States Attorney.)

The documented practice by Burge and others under his command was to torture confessions from black men to facilitate their conviction.

Practices included were the regular use of beatings, suffocation by head
bagging and electric shocks to genitals; techniques seen in photos from at Abu Grav.

The physiological facts of the case are bracketed by victims’ testimony of
racial epithets and slurs accompanying the torture.

The special prosecutors' report released last year documented that Burge
had engaged in decades of torture but concluded that he could not be
prosecuted criminally because the statute of limitations had run out.

The new report and call to action by the group outlined what appeared to
be a deliberate cover-up and delay in the Special Prosecutor Investigation.

A key argument of the new report is that Special Prosecutor Egan and his chief assistant Robert D. Boyle failed to bring criminal charges against Burg and other members of the Chicago Police Department despite the existence of provable offenses well within the statute of limitations.

Burge was fired, but remains on pension, living on his yacht in Florida. Meanwhile as many as 24 victims of torture still remain confined in Illinois jails or prisons, many or most probably innocent of the charges against them.

In the new report the coalition asks the following.

1. That the Cook County Board to hold a hearing on the special prosecutors' report, which was more than four years in the making and cost the taxpayers more than seven million dollars.

2. That Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan offer new court hearings for the 24 victims who remain behind bars,

3. That the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecute Burge and others for
perjury and obstruction of justice in federal civil proceedings brought by
alleged torture victims.