Twenty years ago, Jon Burge was a police officer in Chicago's South Side. He is alleged to have taken part in torturing primarily black suspects in order to elicit confessions. He and other involved officers are reported to have subjected the suspects to the following forms of torture. They were beaten "with telephone books, suffocated with plastic typewriter covers, burned with cigarettes, threatened with mock executions, and suffered electric shocks to their genitals." Burge was acquitted on brutality charges, but was still fired by the Chicago Police Department. Allegations of torture were investigated, but the statute of limitations prevented charges from being filed against Burge.
Burge is now facing a federal indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice based on a deposition he gave in a civil suit by one of his victims. Burge may finally get the justice he so richly deserves.
Burge's place in history, though, is not just limited to some cases in the South Side of Chicago. It was in part due to his actions that Governor George Ryan cleared Illinois' death row after he became concerned about how some people were convicted. His tactics were also part of the impetus behind Barack Obama's proposal that all Police interrogations should be videotaped, which he made while a state legislator in Illinois. The case was even brought before the United Nations. Guantanamo and Abu Graib may be our country's most notorious examples of the use of torture, but it is unfortunately not the only one. We have to be vigilant not only on the international front, but close to home as well.
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