Chicago to make reparations to police torture victims
By Mary Wisniewski CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago will pay $5.5 million and make other reparations to dozens of victims of police torture in the 1970s and 1980s under a city law that human rights lawyers said was the first of its kind, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on Tuesday. The city also will provide psychological counseling, job placement aid and other services to torture victims through a proposed ordinance that is expected to be passed by the City Council. Chicago and Cook County already have paid about $100 million in settlements and verdicts for lawsuits related to disgraced former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, who was fired in 1993 and later convicted of lying about police torture in testimony he gave in civil lawsuits. Chicago has long struggled to build trust between police and minority communities, an effort that has been complicated by recent national uproar over police shootings of unarmed black men. Emanuel said he hoped bringing closure for the Burge victims will improve relations between officers and residents. Burge, a police officer starting in 1970, and detectives under his command were accused of forcing confessions from black suspects by using electric shocks from a homemade device, suffocation with plastic covers and mock executions. "Nothing can take away the pain and suffering we went through. There's not a day that goes by I don't suffer," Anthony Holmes told the city's finance committee at a meeting on Tuesday to review the reparations package. Holmes, who is black, said he was tortured by Burge for two to three days in 1973. Victims' lawyers estimate that 120 people were tortured by Burge and his detectives but some of them have since died. Under the new law, financial reparations would not be available for victims who have already had payouts from the city in civil lawsuits but several dozen victims probably will be eligible, said lawyer Flint Taylor. The reparations package, which will be introduced this week to the full City Council, was developed with representatives of Burge victims, Amnesty International, the mayor and aldermen. Chicago Public Schools will teach the legacy of the Burge case to eighth and 10th grade history students and the city will create a memorial recognizing the victims, under the reparations. Family members of victims will receive counseling. "You will make history by passing this amended ordinance," Joey Mogul, co-founder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, told the committee. Mogul, an attorney with the People's Law Office, which has represented Burge torture survivors, said this would be the first time a municipality paid reparations for police violence. Some convictions obtained by torture by Burge's detective squad were reversed or overturned in the 2000s after being reviewed. (Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Ted Botha and Bill Trott)
