Ex Cop Faces 30 Years over Torture of Suspects.

[Stuart G]

MSNBC... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41169778/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/


CHICAGO — As a decorated Chicago police lieutenant, Jon Burge prided himself on sending bad guys to prison by getting them to confess to terrible crimes — and by committing terrible crimes himself in the process, prosecutors say.

Now, having been convicted of lying about the violent means he and his men used to get confessions, it is Burge's turn to face prison time.

With the sentencing hearing for Burge scheduled to start Thursday, prosecutors say his perjury and obstruction of justice convictions add up to 30-plus years in federal prison.

Defense attorneys are arguing for less than two years for the 63-year-old former commander whose name has become synonymous with police brutality in the nation's third-largest city...............
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Dozens of suspects — almost all of them black men — claimed for decades that Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

Prosecutors presented testimony at trial from five men — Anthony Holmes, Melvin Jones, Andrew Wilson, Gregory Banks and Shadeed Mu'min — who claimed Burge or his men put plastic bags over their heads until they passed out, stuck guns in their mouths or shocked them with electric currents..................................
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The allegations against Burge and his men even helped shape the state's debate over the death penalty.

Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan released four condemned men from death row in 2003 after Ryan said Burge extracted confessions from them using torture.

The allegations of torture and coerced confessions eventually led to a still-standing moratorium on Illinois' death penalty. This month, legislators voted to abolish capital punishment in Illinois. The bill is awaiting the signature of Gov. Pat Quinn.
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This incredible story deserves everyone's attention. Burge tortured innocent men to get confessions to crimes they didn't commit.
His attitude was one ot total arrogance to all questions concerning his behavior. He never admitted to anything ever. Patrick Fitzgerald, Federal Prosecutor, went after him for lying about the torture in a law suit, because Daley, mayor of Chicago, and state's attorney at the time of the torture, refused to prosecute on torture charges.., saying the charges were too old. The fact that Fitzgerald got a conviction is incredible because although people knew about this torture, and people were indeed convicted who didn't commit crimes, everyone thought it couldn't done, and Burge was really above the law. People on death row, innocent people convicted of murder by
the means of Burge's tortue, were proven innocent.
.
Yes I heard about this..in the 80s, and couldn't believe that it could happen in a city I lived in. That we were above this. That is what I thought.
The people of Chicago were not above this......sounds familiar...
Someone else said to the world abouat the United States......
"We do not torture" .....
I guess he lied too....maybe he also will face the truth someday..
This story proves that sometimes the right thing happens.

[upi402]

1. Good. There are great cops who don't need this crap

He sowed the seeds for this and will taste his own medicine. I can hardly believe it will happen. Maybe I should wait to celebrate.

[MedicalAdmin]

3. Next stop - the pentagon.

My guess is that his "time" will be "served" overseas working for the CIA. After all he has experience and a good track record.


This is too fucked up for words.

[Enthusiast]

2. Kicked and Recommended nt

[Blue_Tires]

4. ttt

he should be in prison, and not walking the streets

[Stuart G]

5. Testimony yesterday from one of those tortured by Jon Burge

from the Chicago Tribune..
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/news/local/ct-met-burge-sentencing-20110120,0,4807204.story

Inside the interrogation room almost four decades ago, Anthony Holmes testified Thursday, he looked around at the other detectives as then-Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge electric-shocked and choked him.

Somebody would help, say "that is enough," Holmes said he thought at the time. But no one did, he said at a sentencing hearing for Burge, 63.

Since that day in 1973, Holmes said, he dreams of that room, that he is still there and that, again, no one comes to help. Holmes eventually confessed to murder and went to prison, losing contact with most of his family and suffering long-term emotional pain.

"I just slipped through the cracks," said Holmes, who was imprisoned for a decade. "I had to get help myself. I survived."

Holmes was the first of five prosecution witnesses to testify Thursday in U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's courtroom. The judge could sentence Burge Friday after hearing from additional witnesses, some on Burge's behalf............................
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Burge, dressed in a dark suit, grew animated during testimony from a former police detective who described the stories he heard of abuse under Burge. But for most of the day, he showed little reaction — even when Holmes, reading from a written statement, asked him a question.

"Why did you do this? … You were supposed to be the law."

[Stuart G]

6. Judge ruled this afternoon...4 and1/2 years..

here is link; it is also posted on latest news.

CHICAGO – A decorated former Chicago police officer whose name has become synonymous with police brutality in the city was sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for lying about the torture of suspects.

Dozens of suspects — almost all of them black men — have claimed for decades that Jon Burge and his officers electrically shocked, suffocated and beat them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow said the sentence reflected the seriousness of the allegations and, in making her decision, she wondered why a respected officer so admired by his department would resort to such violence


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110121/ap_on_re_us/us_police_torture_trial