Chicago police tortured prisoners

The report by special investigators Edward Egan and Robert Boyle exposed systematic torture in the Chicago Police Department, but it left the torturers unpunished. Part I of this series described some of the torture and the cops involved. Part II, below, shows how the report helped cover up the role of leading Chi cago politicians connected to the case.

The list of those involved with the conspiracy to protect Jon Burge and his terror squad reads like a who’s who of Cook County Democratic Party politics.

LeRoy Martin was Burge’s supervisor at Area 2 in 1983 before being promoted as the city’s first African American superintendent. As superintendent, Martin recei ved two Office of Professional Stand ards (OPS) reports in 1990. One said Andrew Wilson, who had confessed to murder, was indeed tortured. The other detailed the systematic use of torture at Area 2 under the personal direction of Burge.

Martin did absolutely nothing about this for more than a year. Under pressure from the community, he ordered administrative hearings, which finally led to Burge’s dismissal in February 1993. Martin is presently the Cook County medical examiner’s chief of investigations.

Dick Devine is a prominent “progressive” Democrat in Cook County. He was first assistant state’s attorney during now-Mayor Richard M. Daley's tenure as state's attorney, when over 20 people were tortured. Devine joined a private law firm in 1983. He represented Burge in Wilson’s 1989 federal civil suit.

With City Hall footing the $1 million bill, Devine profited handsomely from his firm’s defense of Burge. He became state’s attorney in 1996 and has aggressively used his office to fight torture survivors’ appeals. Devine is now in his third term. A recent Chicago Reader article said, “[Devine] moved to quash the petition to appoint a special prosecutor despite a clear conflict of interest.”

Gov. Ryan draws cops’ wrath

Before clearing death row in 2003, Gover nor George Ryan pardoned four Burge victims, saying not only that they had been tortured but also that they were innocent, a clear rebuke to Devine and other prosecutors. Devine denounced the pardoned men as “evil.”

There is the danger that the report could be used by the Daley forces and the CPD to cast doubt on the torture of Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and especially Leroy Orange, who received a 2003 pardon from Ryan.

The report is also part of a broader attack on Ryan, his opposition to the death penalty, the death penalty abolition movement and, in a broad sense, all oppressed people. Also, since Ryan took a principled stand against the death penalty that was much more progressive than that taken by any Democrats, it showed there was little significant difference between the two capitalist parties on this issue.

The report will be used to further the prosecution of Prisoner of Conscience Com mittee Minister of Defense Aaron Patterson, who was tortured by Burge in 1986 and pardoned by Ryan in 2003.

Only three pages of the entire 292-page report contain any mention of Daley’s role in the conspiracy of silence. After the report was released, Boyle was pressed by the media to comment upon Daley’s role, something he was clearly loathe to do. The best Boyle could come up with was that there was “a bit of a slide” in the State’s Attorney’s Office during Daley’s tenure, and in retrospect, “more hands-on judgment” maybe could have been exercised.

Flynt Taylor, legal counsel for Leroy Orange, said, “The only guy that ever did anything about this torture is the guy who got named” in the report. Taylor was referring to former Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek. “The only assistant states attorney they’re decrying is a Republican,” Taylor added, a reference to current Judge William Kunkle.

“Brzeczek at least passed on the information about Burge to Daley, and Daley, as states attorney, did nothing. This paper is nothing but a major effort to deflect blame from where it belongs. The man who should be blamed is Daley,” said Taylor.

Of course in Chicago, Mayor-for-Life Daley is untouchable and the one-party rule of the Democrats here is unassailable, so the report comes down hard on people whom it is politically safe to blame, which in this case are the two Republicans, Kunkle and Brzeczek.

Daley’s response to the report finally came after two days of deafening official silence from City Hall. Daley asked rhetorically: “Do you think I would sit by. ... That I had knowledge about it, and I would allow it—then you don’t know my public career.”

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, who is considering a run against Daley for the mayor’s office in Febru ary, criticized Daley’s attempt to absolve himself of responsibility in the Burge case, but stopped short of actually taking a stand against cop terrorism.

Torture survivor Madison Hobley said: “The special investigators didn’t do anything we wanted them to do. I’m really, really disappointed. I can’t believe that this stuff is going on still.”

Meanwhile, organizers in the African-American community have rejected the report’s cover-up of Daley and other top officials, its attack on torture survivors such as political prisoner Aaron Patterson, and its conclusion that no legal remedy is available.

A meeting convened by attorney Stan Willis of the National Council of Black Lawyers voted to hold a mass mobilization on Sept. 15. They also plan on an extensive series of teach-ins beginning on Aug. 26 and a campaign to vote off the bench judges who admitted these “confessions” into evidence or covered up the torture when they were state’s attorneys.

Activists also warn that they may oppose Chicago’s active bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.