Former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge (Credit: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Reporting Craig Dellimore
CHICAGO (WBBM) — Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis says he’s embarrassed by the police pension board decision allowing former Cmdr. Jon Burge to keep his pension.
Weis said the board’s 4-4 vote sends the wrong message, especially to the African American community.
LISTEN: Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore Reports
Five votes were needed to revoke the pension. The board decided that Burge’s conviction was not directly related to his work as a police officer. Burge was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison last week for lying about the torture of suspects under his watch.
Weis said the pension board seems to have overlooked some key history in the case.
“You had Burge arguing that he should be defended by the city and by the union because his actions took place when he was a police officer,” Weis said.
“Now the pension board seems to have overlooked that … and says well this stuff took place after the fact and had nothing to do with his service has a police officer.”
According to the state’s pension code, benefits must be denied “to any person who is convicted of any felony relating to or arising out of or in connection with his or her service as a police officer.”
Burge’s pension board supporters contended that the charges, and conviction, in the case came after Burge left the force and should not affect his pension.
The four board members who voted in Burge’s favor are current or former cops elected by Chicago police officers: Kenneth Hauser, Michael Lazzaro, James Maloney, and Michael Shields. The four who voted against Burge were appointed by Mayor Richard Daley: Michael Conway, Steven Lux, Stephanie Neely and Gene Saffold.
Since he was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993, Burge’s name has become synonymous with police brutality in Chicago.
Dozens of suspects have accused Burge and the detectives under his command of shocking them with a homemade electrical device, suffocating them with typewriter bags, putting guns to their head and playing Russian roulette — all to force them to confess to murders they didn’t commit.
Weis is the guest on “At Issue” on Newsradio 780 on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
12 Comments
He is gulty. I don’t want to give up my source. But I know he is guilty
January 28, 2011 at 1:39 pm
It is a travesty that he is allowed to keep his pension. They ought to let the taxpayers vote as to whether they want to pay for him to have it.
January 28, 2011 at 1:56 pm
I don’t understand how someone who is fired from the police force gets to keep their pension to begin with. Shouldn’t losing your pension be a repercussion of getting canned? Do other companies extend pensions to fired employees? This guy is a monster. The decision of the pension board is a disgrace.
January 28, 2011 at 1:56 pm
It’s the law you goof. Keeping Rahm on the ballot now that is a travesty.
January 28, 2011 at 2:07 pm
There’s no need to call me names.
January 28, 2011 at 2:11 pm
No, it is not the law that he gets to keep his pension. The reality is pension revocation is voted on by a board. That is why politicians and the police tend to keep their pensions after terminations or curtain types felonious convictions. So, as in the Burge case, the board who voted he keep his pension was his cronies.
January 28, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Weis is a bum and nobody cares what his opinion is anymore. Every sane candidate has expressed their intention of firing him also. The pension issue is the law in iIlinois, you do not automatically lose anything here. Ryan has his pension and so will Blago.
January 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm
and those laws allowing convicted felons to keep their benefits needs to be changed!!! The system is an f-ing joke!!!!
January 28, 2011 at 2:38 pm
You bleeding hearts always want someone to be homeless when they get convicted in a questionable case. Burge didn’t do anything that he was not told to do by his superiors. People embelished and padded the story until it got out of control. Every one of those crying felons were just that, big time felons and public enemies. And for the record Weis already lied to you that crime is down over twenty times and now he will pander to the black community on AT ISSUE ,when he really was their worst enemy. More cops and CPS kids were horificly killed under his watch than any other supt. in memory. Now Craig Delimore wants to interview the “irrelavent coward.” Nobody else is paying any attention to him and the media hound weis is freaking out because he thought he was a celebrity. Way to go Craig. I won’t be listening and I dout anybody else will be either.
January 28, 2011 at 8:12 pm
He was convicted of… lying to a grand jury ten yeras after he left the City job.
The exact thing Clinton was impeached for- lying under oath. Clinton was impeached and he still has his pension even though he did it while still holding his office. Burge held no office when he ran afowel of the law.
Justice has been served…four and one half years in prison… .
January 28, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Jody Weis is sooo wrong this doesn’t send the wrong message to African Americans. It just confirms that we got the message right years ago.
January 28, 2011 at 9:35 pm
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