The Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Community Leaders and Victims of Police Torture Hold Press Conference, Protest

23 April 2006

(PRWEB) April 22, 2006 -- Four years after the appointment of Special Prosecutor Edward Egan to investigate police torture under Former Commander Jon Burge, community leaders will hold a press conference to demand indictments against those responsible for torture. They will then lead a delegation to deliver an open letter to Egan's office (see attached).

"Torture is happening in our very own back yard. For years, Jon Burge systematically tortured African American men in police stations on the South Side of Chicago. You don't have to believe me. The Office of Professional Standards (OPS) the Chicago police's own investigatory agency found that physical abuse did occur and that it was systematic. Yet many of Burge's victims remain behind bars. Without a doubt, they deserve new trials. My question is, why isn't Jon Burge doing time?" said Alice Kim, National Organizer of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

Special Prosecutor Edward Egan was assigned April 24, 2002 to investigate allegations of police torture under Burge and his detectives, who used techniques such as electroshock, Russian roulette and suffocation to extract false confessions from as many as 135 African American men on the South Side of Chicago while in police custody. Some of the torture victims, known as the Death Row 10, were sentenced to death, while many others still are serving long prison terms. Madison Hobley, one of the Death Row 10, was pardoned based on innocence by former Governor Ryan in 2003. He will participate in the press conference Monday. «I spent 13 years on Death Row because of corrupt and racist police officers. I just hope the Special Prosecutor does the right thing,» he said.

Sources such as U.S. District Court judge Milton Shadur, who presided over the evidentiary hearing for death row inmate Andrew Maxwell, have acknowledged that torture under Jon Burge was systematic. Shadur wrote: «It is now common knowledge that in the early to mid-1980s Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions.» Nevertheless, neither Burge nor any of the officers working under him have faced prosecution, and Burge, fired in 1993, still collects a full pension.

An open letter to Special Prosecutor Edward Egan, assigned to investigate allegations of Chicago police torture, from leaders of community organizations, prisoners and their family members.

Dear Mr. Egan:

Four years ago today, you were appointed to investigate more than 100 cases of torture at the hands of police officers under former Commander Jon Burge. Many of us represent organizations that campaigned for your appointment, which we believed to be a moment of great hope for victims of torture and their family members, who had waited as long as 20 years for justice. Now, for many, hope has turned to anxiety as the fate of their loved ones remains unknown. We hope you share our concerns that it is unconscionable for those guilty of systematic torture to remain free while their victims remain imprisoned on the basis of false confessions. We also would remind you of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail that «justice too long delayed is justice denied».

You have a unique opportunity to make your mark upon history. The Death Row 10 (police torture victims who were sent to death row), as well as all the other torture victims, have suffered great civil liberties violations at the hands of Jon Burge and his underlings. For over 30 years, there has been a band of corrupt Chicago police detectives who not only have freely kidnapped and tortured Cook County citizens into signing false confessions, but have committed these illegal acts with the comfort of their cover-up by the Cook County State's Attorney's office. We call on you to finally administer justice by publicly condemning their torturous acts and to allow the victims of these police officers to finally regain their freedom and their lives.

We hope you will do the right thing with your investigation -- name the officers involved -- and name the judges and States attorneys who knew the police officers were using torture. Expose the police criminal code of silence and expose those government officials who have consistently turned their heads from the injustices that so many have suffered. We believe that your report should expose the connection of the police torture scandal to low and high-ranking officials throughout Cook County's criminal justice system, because it is our belief that the scandal could not have taken place without the knowledge, help and cover-up by many prosecutors, judges and members of the Chicago Police Department.

Bring the perpetrators of these acts to justice. The perpetrators should be punished and the victims deserve freedom or new trials. Encourage the civil court judges to help Stanley Howard, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson and Leroy Orange to finally win compensation for the years they spent innocently on death row.

Source: prweb

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