Jon Burge and Chicago Police Torture
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Resistance Historical Moments of Policing, Violence, and JON BURGE AND CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE Vol. 8 1 March 2013 1 ABOUT THIS SERIES In the last few months of 2011 into early populations (including some activists and 2012, the issue of police violence once organizers). again burst into the mainstream with the This series titled Historical treatment of Occupy protesters. Moments of Policing, Violence & While we were appalled at the Resistance features pamphlets on various violence directed at peaceful protesters by topics including: Oscar Grant, the law enforcement, we were also dismayed Mississippi Black Papers, Slave Patrols, the that this phenomenon was treated as a Young Lords, the 1968 Democratic novel one.The incidents were discussed in Convention, the Danzinger Bridge a way that was divorced from historical Shootings, Black Student Protests on context. After all, the black and white College Campuses, Timothy Thomas, images of police dogs being unleashed on Resistance to Police Violence in Harlem, peaceful protesters during the black and the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, freedom movement of the 1950s and 60s among others. would not have been alien to the young people who were abused by law The pamphlets are available for free enforcement in New York and Oakland at downloading at www.policeviolence.word- Series Conceived and Published by the Occupy protests. Police violence is press.com. Please spread the word about Project NIA unfortunately not new. the availability of these publications. (www.project-nia.org) In an attempt to inject some and historical memory into the current Series Conceived and Published by Project Chicago considerations of police violence, Project NIA (www.project-nia.org) and Chicago Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) Teaching Collective NIA and the Chicago Prison Industrial PIC Teaching Collective (www.chicagopiccollective.com) Complex (PIC) Teaching Collective decided (www.chicagopiccollective.com). to develop a series of pamphlets to inform and educate the broader public about the longstanding tradition of oppressive policing toward marginalized SPECIAL THANKS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE CREATORS We could not have created this Every single person who worked on this pamphlet without the decades of work series volunteered his or her time to this Marissa Faustini and done around Jon Burge and Chicago effort. We are grateful beyond words for Sharlyn Grace met in 2005 police torture by the dedicated your support and for your talents. while doing campus community members involved in the Special thanks to the following people organizing against war and many different campaigns and the who have contributed to making this racism and publishing a attorneys at People’s Law Office (PLO). project possible: radical magazine. Once they These coalitions and individuals taught a class on nonviolence worked tirelessly for decades to bring Authors: Samuel Barnett, Martha Biondi, and social change to their this story to light. We are so thankful Lisa Dadabo, Billy Dee, Sharlyn Grace, peers. Marissa is still for the incredible resources they have Julie Hilvers, Mariame Kaba, Eric Kerl, improving the world as a created, gathered, and made available Olivia Perlow, Emily Pineda, Lewis therapist in Chicago public to us all—we have merely tried to Wallace schools, and Sharlyn might summarize their work in here. We are Editors: Mariame Kaba, Laura Mintz, one day do something good particularly grateful to Flint Taylor and Emily Pineda, Gina Tarullo with a law degree. They Joey Mogul of PLO for providing Graphic Designers: Madeleine Arenivar, would like to see the prison especially useful resources, and to Joey Micah Bazant, Antonia Clifford, Marissa industrial complex destroyed. for reviewing this pamphlet for us. Faustini, Eric Kerl, Mauricio Pineda OVERVIEW OF becoming a CPD officer, and AND THE TORTURE OF he likely learned the electric ANDREW WILSON CHICAGO POLICE 2 1 shock tactic during the war. By the early 1980s, Burge TORTURE, 1972-1991 The practical goal of the was a Lieutenant in charge Between 1972 and 1991, torture was often to of investigating violent Chicago Police Department produce confessions that crimes in Area 2. When two (CPD) officers tortured over could be used to convict white CPD officers were 114 African American men, suspects or others of crimes killed on the South Side in women, and youth. Victims under the purview of Area February 1982, Burge was were as young as 13 years O POLICE TORTURE POLICE O 2’s investigatory put in charge of searching old, and at least 26 officers responsibilities, raising Area for the perpetrators. The were involved. Detective Jon 2’s arrest and conviction ensuing manhunt created Burge, the leader of CPD’s rates and assisting Burge’s conditions on the South Area 2 midnight shift on the rapid rise through the CPD Side that some compared to majority African American ranks. The torture was Nazi Germany. Police kicked South Side of Chicago, systemic and rooted in down doors, abused dozens appears to have been deeply held racist beliefs. of African American primarily responsible for Burge and his men referred residents, and tortured introducing torture to the apparently numerous men they techniques to CPD. homemade electrical device believed to have Burge’s torture techniques they used to shock men information about the included electric shock, with as the “nigger box.” killings. African American JOHBURGE AND CHICAG suffocation, burns, many The torture became an community groups kinds of beatings, use of “open secret” among both eventually collected over cattle prods, use of nooses, the CPD and African 200 complaints about police mock executions with guns, American communities. misconduct during the and genital pain. Burge manhunt, but neither served as a military police 1982: THE CPD RAMPAGE the police department’s sergeant in a Prisoner of FOLLOWING THE MURDER internal review section nor War camp during the OF TWO CPD OFFICERS, government officials acted Vietnam War before on the complaints. In Andrew Wilson’s Injuries 3 response, community activists took review Citizens Alert, Clergy and Laity Concerned, into their own hands and conducted a ACT UP, and Queer Nation. community hearing where they discussed how the police had treated them. Eventually, police found upon Andrew 1990 TO THE PRESENT: THE FIGHT FOR Wilson, and they proceeded to torture him JUSTICE both as a form of vigilante punishment and Despite the hard work of community to elicit a confession that could be used to activists and Andrew Wilson’s attorneys, convict him of the murders. Burge and Burge remained unpunished until 1991. other officers put a bag over Mr. Wilson’s Many people believe that the lack of head, burned him on a radiator, beat him, consequences following the publicity of the and applied electric shocks to his lips, Wilson case further emboldened Burge. In ears, nose, and genitals. His injuries led to the nine years following the 1982 a medical examination by the prison health manhunt, Burge and his men tortured at services, and the resulting documentation least 74 more people (the majority of the of Mr. Wilson’s injuries proved to be crucial known victims). Community groups and in shedding light on police torture at Area advocates continued to put pressure on 2. The extent of his injuries even received government officials, and in 1990, some media attention at the time. succeeded in forcing the Chicago City Though the medical director of prison Council to hold a hearing on the torture health services wrote to CPD allegations. In years afterward, they led Superintendent Richard Brzeczek and marches to and sit-ins at City Hall, and emphatically stated the need for an also protested outside Mayor Daley’s investigation into the obvious police home. brutality that Mr. Wilson experienced, no Burge was suspended in 1991, following such investigation occurred. At this time, the release of damaging reports Richard M. Daley—the future six-term investigating the torture allegation from Mayor of Chicago—was the Cook County CPD’s conduct review office. In 1993, Jon State’s Attorney. Brzeczek consulted with Burge was finally fired from the CPD upon Daley over whether or not to investigate the recommendation of its internal review Mr. Wilson’s injuries, and Daley decided to board, following a trial in which three do nothing. Instead, both Brzeczek and torture survivors testified. Daley publicly applauded Burge for his Activists continued to demand justice for performance following the police murders, torture survivors—including those still in and chose to use Mr. Wilson’s tortured prison. Ten death row prisoners who were confession to convict him and sentence torture victims formed the Death Row 10. him to die. Groups including the Campaign to End the Mr. Wilson filed his own pro se civil Death Penalty and the Aaron Patterson rights lawsuit from inside prison in 1986, Defense Committee worked with death alleging that he had been tortured by penalty abolition groups to highlight both Burge and several other Area 2 officers. the individual injustice of the Ten’s cases People’s Law Office (PLO) began to and to bolster the argument that flaws in represent Mr. Wilson in his case. the Death Row 10’s convictions disprove Eventually, PLO received anonymous letters the certainty of guilt required even by most from a police insider that named other death penalty proponents. Their work was police officers and officials implicated in crucial in convincing Governor Ryan to the torture scandal and also identified pardon four torture survivors from death additional torture victim Melvin Jones. This row on the basis of innocence in 2002. and other leads from PLO’s investigation, Also in 2002, after forming the alongside ongoing pressure from Campaign to Prosecute Police Torture, community groups, was a turning point in activists succeeding in getting special state collecting evidence of police torture and prosecutors appointed to examine Burge documenting the identities of victims and and other CPD officers’ conduct.