“Four years ago I called for a special prosecutor. They came out with this report that cost $8 million to $10 million and took four years to write,” Mary Johnson, a member of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty, said at the August 4 Militant Labor Forum here. “It doesn’t say anything that’s new to us. And it doesn’t call for prosecution.”

Evidence in the report reveals that Police Lieutenant Jon Burge and those under his command beat suspects, shocked their genitals with electricity, put plastic bags over their heads, stuck guns in their mouths, and inflicted radiator burns on the victims.

The special prosecutor detailed how Burge could be convicted of aggravated battery, perjury, and obstruction of justice in the torture of three African-Americans. An additional 1,452-page report takes up another 145 cases, in half of which Special Prosecutor Edward Egan says he “believes” torture took place, but that there isn’t enough evidence to prove it.

Burge, who was in the military police in Vietnam in the 1960s, became a Chicago cop in 1970. As the police commander accused of overseeing the torture by cops on the night shift, he was fired in 1993. He is now living in Florida on a $40,000 pension from the city of Chicago. Some city officials are pressing for the termination of his pension.

While the report found evidence of abuse, it concludes that no charges can be filed because the statute of limitations has run out. Attorneys for the People’s Law Office, however, say that new charges can be brought for a continuing cover-up, including racketeering, conspiracy, or obstruction of justice.

Five federal lawsuits are pending against Burge today. Former death row inmates pardoned in 2003 by former governor George Ryan, when enough evidence of torture came to light, have filed four of these suits.

“People ask me how this can happen,” said Johnson, whose son Michael was tortured in 1972. “First of all, my son is Black. And I’m his mother. I’m poor. They call us minorities. But working people are the majority. Some of us are getting frustrated and angry. That’s why the government is throwing us a few crumbs of truth. They are scared of us.”  
 
 
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