Emanuel Non-Committal On Reparations For Burge Victims
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel side-stepped questions about whether the city should pay reparations to some victims of police torture under notorious former Police Cmdr. Jon Burge, who recently was released from prison.
WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports the city already has spent more than $20 million defending Burge, his detectives, and former Mayor Richard M. Daley against lawsuits stemming from torture allegations. The city also has spent approximately $100 million to settle lawsuits stemming from police torture committed by Burge and his detectives in the 1970s and 1980s.
"I wanted to close the books, and close that ugly chapter and stain on the city of Chicago, because what happened there is wrong," the mayor said of the torture settlements.
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However, attorneys have said there are 94 other torture victims who could not sue, because the statute of limitations has run out. Several aldermen have proposed setting up a $20 million fund to compensate those victims.
Emanuel expressed sympathy for uncompensated torture victims, but was non-committal about reparations.
"There's a number of things that they talked about, the folks, that I'm going to look at, work through. … On the money piece, we have to study it," he said. "As we get ready for what we have to do, from a financial standpoint, there must be some way to address those whose statute of limitations have run out, but it doesn't mean there's only one way to do it."
Last year, the mayor apologized for the torture.
"It's a stain on the city's reputation, and that's why I tried to write a wrong, as well as verbalize it," he said Wednesday.
Last week, Burge was released from a federal prison in North Carolina, where he served time for lying about torture. He was moved to a halfway house in Florida to complete the remainder of his sentence.
