Illinois: Jury: Former cop lied about torture

[47of74]

Source: Associated Press

CHICAGO -- A former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking and beating confessions out of scores of suspects was convicted Monday of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about torture.

Jurors deliberated for parts of three days before finding former Lt. Jon Burge guilty. Burge, who did not react as the verdict was read, can remain free on bond until his Nov. 5 sentencing, when he faces up to 45 years in prison. Attorney Flint Taylor, who represented some of the torture victims, hugged people around him.

Burge's name has become synonymous with police brutality and abuse of power in the country's third-largest city. For decades, dozens of suspects -- almost all of them black men -- claimed Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said "a message needs to go out that that conduct is unacceptable" and asked others who feel they have evidence of torture to come forward.

Read more: http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=287656

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It's great that Burge was found guilty, and I hope this scumbag spends the rest of his life in prison. What bothers me is that he's out on the streets until his sentencing. He should have been placed into custody immediately.

[formercia]

1. From the Cold Case Files

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/formercia/223



Jon Burge


http://chicagoist.com/2007/11/15/brutal_re...

November 15, 2007
Brutal Report on CPD

Kind of a CPD-heavy day today. University of Chicago Law School professor Craig Futterman released a new study today titled "The Use of Statistical Evidence to Address Police Supervisory and Disciplinary Practices: The Chicago Police Department's Broken System." (Download the .pdf here.) The report is only 40 pages long, and it's un-fucking-believable. In it, Futterman and his co-authors H. Melissa Mather and Melanie Miles outline a blistering analysis of the CPD's "fundamental and systemic" problems, a "culture of not knowing" and a "machinery of denial" when it comes to charges of police abuse. We'll pull out some highlights here, but the entire report is really, really worth reading:

"The odds are two in a thousand that a Chicago police officer will receive any meaningful discipline as a result of being charged with abusing a civilian."
The report then goes on to explain that police brutality is under-reported, which means the odds of a Chicago police officer ever facing real consequences for brutality is even lower than 2 in 1,000; the report puts it at 2 in 10,000.

"While few police departments are known for effectively policing themselves, Chicago is, on a number of accountability measures, significantly worse than the norm.... The average sustained rate for excessive force cases in major metropolitan police departments was 8 percent, compared to Chicago’s 0.48% "


--snip--

[Dawson Leery]

2. A rare day that a bad cop gets such stiff punishment.

[harry_pothead]

3. Yep. They're usually protected by their cronies in the system.

[Stuart G]

5. His cronies did indeed protect him for 20 years...nt

[Stuart G]

4. Yes, and he was convicted on technicality, made to testify and lied.

It was lieing about torture
..Federal case, the city never went after him..It was Fitzgerald that made him testify about this torture, and Fitz went after him for not telling the truth about.
.

[No Elephants]

6. "For decades." Makes me want to cry.