Between 1972 and 1991, approximately 135 African-American men and women were arrested and tortured

[NNN0LHI]

http://humanrights.uchicago.edu/chicagotorture/

FACTS AT A GLANCE

Between the years of 1972 and 1991, approximately 135 African-American men and women were arrested and tortured at the hands of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his command at Area 2 police headquarters. Some of these victims were as young as thirteen years old. Various court cases have established that the methods of torture used in the interrogation of suspects included electric shock to the ears and genitalia, mock executions, suffocation, and burning. While Jon Burge was ultimately fired by the Chicago Police Department, not a single perpetrator of the tortures has ever been criminally prosecuted.

These incidents were not isolated and allegations of abuse by Burge continue to surface. In fact, the Area 2 cases are seen by many observers as part of a pattern and practice of racially-motivated police brutality in Chicago that has been revealed over the course of many years. This site is devoted to telling the stories of the Area 2 victims and seeking justice for those without a voice.

Today, over two decades have passed since the first allegations of torture by Chicago police officers surfaced. Many of the allegations have been acknowledged to be credible. For example, Judge Milton Shadur of the U.S. District Court (N.D. Ill.) found that:

“It is now common knowledge that in the early to mid-1980s Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and many officers working under him in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions.” U.S. ex rel. Maxwell v. Gilmore 37 F. Supp.2d 1078 (N.D. Ill. 1999)

[dipsydoodle]

1. Fuck

that's dreadful. :(

Rec'd.

[polly7]

2. Stupid question, but are your Police Commanders voted in, or do they

climb up in the ranks to get where they are. What I'm getting at, is who is responsible for overseeing these jerks enabling them to get away with this for so long?

[NNN0LHI]

3. No elections for police here

And just for the record Burge began using and practicing these torture methods while he was a soldier in Vietnam. A highly decorated soldier I might add.

Imagine what this fucker was doing to those people?

Don

[DrunkenBoat]

4. in operation phoenix?

[NNN0LHI]

5. They used techniques that were well-known in the Mekong Delta in 1963 to 1965

http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/transcripts/0031.html

<snip>So part of the history of torture—it's amazing how our world keeps on shifting and changing. Commander Burge's detectives, those who allegedly did the kinds of things that he is accused of doing, used techniques that were well-known in the Mekong Delta in 1963 to 1965.

I hate to say this, but practically speaking, torture basically throws a 20-year shadow if you use it in a war. Domestic stuff goes out; war stuff comes back. This isn't just us. The French had this, too. We all think of electrotorture as being something tied to the Nazis. Actually, the French developed the signature form of electrotorture, the magneto, in Vietnam in 1931. It was passed on to the Gestapo by a member of the Vichy police, a man by the name of Pierre Marty, who was colonial governor of Tunis, in 1943, and then it moves north from there.

Torture comes home. That's the really important point to recognize. Torture doesn't need a passport. It doesn't need to recognize the difference between domestic and international.

[polly7]

6. I try to imagine watching something suffer without

hurting for them, and I can't do it. These people must be monsters. And yet they walk among us and rise to power. Sometimes I think there's no good left in the world.

[Stuart G]

7. The chief prosecutor of Cook County at the time was Richard M Daley

He later became mayor. Claims he didn't know about it.