Black Chicago Suspects Tortured

From http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-police-torture,0,4769767.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines




AP Top News
Probe: Black Chicago Suspects Tortured

By DON BABWINAssociated Press WriterJuly 20, 2006, 5:16 AM EDT


CHICAGO -- Years ago, black suspects accused Chicago police of extracting confessions through torture: beatings, electric shocks, games of mock Russian roulette, and throwing typewriter covers over their heads to make them gasp for air. On Wednesday, prosecutors appointed to look into the allegations from the 1970s and 1980s said they found evidence that some of the allegations were true -- but that the cases are too old or too weak to prosecute.





Prosecutors Robert D. Boyle and Edward Egan said that evidence indicated police abused at least half of the 148 suspects whose cases were reviewed in the $6.1 million investigation, which included 700 people and more than 33,000 documents. Nearly all of the suspects were black. The investigators were not able to substantiate all of the allegations, but made it clear they believed many of the claims. Boyle and Egan said there was enough evidence to prosecute in only three cases involving a total of five former officers, but the three-year statute of limitations has run out. "We only wish that we could indict on these three cases," Boyle said. Attorneys for the alleged torture victims called on Illinois' chief federal prosecutor to bring federal charges. But Boyle said the U.S. attorney has also concluded that the statute of limitations has run out. Among the five officers involved in the three cases prosecutors mentioned was Jon Burge, a lieutenant who commanded a violent-crimes unit and the so-called "midnight crew" that allegedly participated in most of the alleged torture. Neither Burge nor anyone else has ever been charged, but Burge was fired in 1991 after a police board found that a murder suspect was abused while in custody. Burge's attorney has said Burge never tortured anyone. In their 300-page report, the prosecutors accused then-police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek of dereliction of duty and said he and a former top official at the Cook County State's Attorney's office, William Kunkle, failed to pursue an investigation into allegations of torture.

"They can blame me for whatever they want to blame me for," Brzeczek said. "I know what I did was correct. It was not dereliction of duty." Kunkle, now a Cook County circuit judge, was not available for comment, his staff said. The report also goes into graphic detail about the alleged torture of Andrew Wilson, who was convicted in the murder of two Chicago police officers. Wilson said he was beaten and kicked during his interrogation, and that officers put a plastic bag over his head and burned his arm with a cigarette. Then, he said, an officer pulled from a grocery bag a black box that had a crank on it. He said alligator clips were attached to his left ear and left nostril and he received a shock when an officer cranked the box. Burge, he said, also cranked the box to shock him and then put a gun in Wilson's mouth and clicked it.

The report said no black box was ever recovered. But the report makes it clear that there is ample evidence -- including burn marks on Wilson's nostril and ear -- that such a device was used. Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline said the report does not reflect today's department. He said a new system videotapes all police interrogations of murder suspects and prevents the type of abuse detailed in the report. Several people who claimed to have been abused by Chicago detectives have sued the city and the police department, and the report could bolster their cases. Attorney Locke Bowman of the MacArthur Justice Center said the City Council should pay for counseling for those who contend they were tortured. "That is not where this matter should rest. That is not where it will rest," Bowman said.

* __ Associated Press Writers Sharon Cohen and Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report.