Chicago's Torture Cop Awaits His Sentence
By Salim Muwakkil
In These Times
December 28, 2010
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/6749/chicagos_torture_cop_awaits_his_sentence/

    The depressing Burge saga reinforces the notion that
    racial bias is part of the institutional gene pool
    of the nation's police departments.

G. Flint Taylor should be basking in the glow of
vindication as he awaits the January 20 sentencing of
Jon Burge, the retired Chicago police commander
convicted for lying about a ring of torturing cops he
led.

A federal jury found Burge guilty on two counts of
obstruction of justice and one count of perjury last
June. Taylor and the firm he co-founded, the Chicago-
based Peoples Law Office, have represented several of
the more than 100 black men victimized by Burge's
torture corps and have been trying to bring the rogue
cop to justice for more than 20 years.

"Burges' conviction was a significant victory for the
community, particularly the African-American community,"
Taylor says. "It was also an important win for the
forces fighting for human rights and racial justice in
this country." However, the lack of attention to other
aspects of the torture case frustrates the veteran
attorney.

For many years, suspects and activists charged that
Burge was operating a "black site" of torture at police
district Area 2 on Chicago's far South Side. In 1993,
those charges gained enough credibility to get Burge
fired, but that just allowed him to retire on a police
pension in Florida.

Growing complaints forced a 2006 investigation of Burge
by a Cook County special prosecutor that found evidence
of systematic torture of black suspects through
techniques like electro-shocks to the genitals,
beatings, burning skin on radiators, Russian roulette,
suffocations, and mock executions. Despite that, the
prosecutor refused to indict Burge because the statute
of limitation had run out on torture charges.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald did an end-run
around the statute of limitations by charging Burge with
perjury and obstructing justice, instead of actual
torture. Fitzgerald successfully used the ex-cop's
deposition from a 2003 lawsuit in which he denied
knowledge of torture.

In court papers filed in early November, federal
prosecutors announced they are seeking at least 24 years
in prison for the 62-year-old Burge. However, under
federal sentencing guidelines, the federal probation
office has recommended 15 to 21 months. His lawyers are
seeking probation, noting that Burge is 62 and suffering
from prostate cancer.

Taylor agrees with the prosecutors' recommendations, but
he is more concerned with the 20-odd men still
imprisoned because of confessions extracted in Burges'
torture chambers. "Their issues must be addressed and
they should be compensated," says Taylor. "There are
about 10 cops who directly worked with Burge and a
broader range of people who aided and abetted his
torture and lied for him."

Despite the infamy the case brought to Chicago and the
entire nation, there has been no push by local or
national politicians to pass statutes against police
torture. Taylor is particularly galled at the pass given
to outgoing mayor Richard M. Daley, who was state's
attorney for Cook County during the worst of the torture
and therefore "one of the prosecutors responsible for
the nearly 30-year delay in prosecuting Burge."

Daley has announced he will not run for re-election, and
as reporters assess his legacy there is scant mention of
his role in the torture scandal, both as state's
attorney and mayor. Incredibly, Taylor notes, Daley
authorized the city to retain Richard Bueke, Burge's
hyperbolic criminal attorney, in recently filed cases
seeking justice for torture victims. "This brings the
city's torture defense meter to $12 million," he says.

That sum is part of the "more than $30 million the city
has spent on lawyers and payouts to Burge's victims as a
result of many lawsuits," according to the prosecutors'
court filing. The filing said Burge's "criminal acts
have tainted and prejudiced the thousands of hard-
working dedicated police officers who have followed in
Burge's polluted wake."

This depressing saga of torture in the American
heartland reinforces the notion that racial bias is part
of the institutional gene pool of the nation's police
departments. Burge's conviction offers a glimmer of hope
that people willing to wage a protracted struggle for
social justice can sometimes win a battle. The larger
war continues.

___________________________________________

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