Reparations for Chicago Police torture?

[Preacher]

PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 16, 2015
Chicago: Finance Committee Announces A Hearing on the Burge Torture Reparations Ordinance
CHICAGO — Today, the finance committee of the Chicago City Council announced that it will hold a hearing on the Burge Torture Reparations Ordinance on April 14. The announcement was made at today’s finance committee meeting. Several organizers and activists were present to demand a hearing and demonstrate their support for the reparations ordinance.

The ordinance has been stalled in the finance committee since it was filed in city council on October 16, 2013 by Aldermen Joe Moreno (1st Ward) and Howard Brookins (21st Ward). Several organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, Project NIA and We Charge Genocide have held rallies, demonstrations, marches, sing-ins, exhibitions, and public memorials in the last three months to demand a public hearing on the ordinance and call on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and aldermen and women to fully support the ordinance and commit to its immediate passage in city council.

“We are pleased that we are finally going to have a hearing on the ordinance. We look forward to the day when the people of Chicago will hear from the torture survivors and international human rights experts as to why this must be passed,” said Joey Mogul of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials.

“Burge’s reign of torture started over 42 years ago. It is now past due for Mayor Emanuel and the city of Chicago to take full responsibility for the egregious harm inflicted by Burge and his subordinates, and provide the torture survivors and family members the compensation and services they so richly deserve, as mandated by international law.”

The ordinance is supported by Cook County Commissioner and mayoral candidate Jesus (Chuy) Garcia, 29 city aldermen and women, and numerous other political and civil leaders in Chicago. This past November, the United Nations Committee Against Torture also called upon the city of Chicago to enact the ordinance.

The ordinance was drafted in 2012 to address the fact that over 100 African American men and women have been subjected to racially motivated torture including electric shock, mock executions, suffocation and beatings by former Police Commander Jon Burge and his subordinates between 1972 and 1991. Although Burge was convicted in federal court in 2010 for perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from the torture cases, he continues to draw a pension, while scores of Chicago Police torture survivors continue to suffer from the psychological effects of the torture they endured without any compensation, assistance, or legal redress.

“A public hearing on the reparations ordinance is a critical and necessary step toward the justice that Chicago police torture survivors need to heal, but the struggle is not yet over.

"More than four decades after Jon Burge first began his legacy of torture on Chicago's south side, it’s long past time for city officials, including Mayor Emanuel, to stand on the right side of history and unequivocally support reparations for torture survivors,” said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

“It’s crucial that the city of Chicago ensure full and adequate reparations without any further delay so that justice delayed does not become justice denied.”

The ordinance serves as a formal apology to the survivors; creates a commission to administer financial compensation to the survivors; creates a medical, psychological, and vocational center on the south side of Chicago; provides free enrollment in city colleges to the survivors; requires Chicago public schools to teach a history lesson about the cases; requires the city to fund public memorials about the cases; and sets aside $20 million to finance all of this redress – approximately the same amount of money the city has spent to defend Burge, other detectives and former Mayor Richard M. Daley in the Chicago Police torture cases.

 

[Will Dernis]

The most outrageous aspect of police misconduct that I will never understand is how readily they're retired, with honors, with pension, for unspeakable acts of cruelty. It's astounding how well the police forces are marketed to the public as "true heroes", the people who put their lives at risk every day to make sure the meth stays out of the hands of children, and children out of the hands of pedophiles, and pedophiles off the streets. And these true stories of police barbarism are rampant, but it seems that they're viewed as freak incidents ("and that cop is probably misrepresented, he was just trying to help us, really, right? Right?").

There was a cop in my hometown who the vast majority of citizens absolutely loved and adored. He was even the school liasion, famous for busting students with coke and never turning in the evidence (but we all know cops don't do coke, right? Right?), but the worst part is he raped a young girl in the back of his squad car. My friend and his dog had ridden in the back of that car the same day that incident occured, and police came to take mouth swabs of both him and his dog to check the DNA in the back of the car. And when they were done with their investigation, that cop was retired, with honors, with pension. If he was found to be innocent by the investigation, there's no way in hell such a beloved town figure would be expelled from that most honorable of institutions.

I find myself being less and less surprised by all of these stories, and even expecting them. Which I find dangerous. These should not be expected. They should be viewed without bias, without cookie-cutter regurgitated 'morals'. And I understand that with the way this system is, this is out of the question. The vicious circle is mighty. This country's turning more and more to shit. I hope eventually it will provide fertile soil for something new, stronger, and healthier to grow.