Activists, Police Torture Victims Renew Call For Reparations
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Justice advocates have marked Rev. Martin Luther King's birthday by raising their voices for reparations for victims of police torture under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
Activists and former torture victims participated in a sing-in at City Hall, where music set the tone as they repeated their demand for reparations for suspects tortured into false confessions by officers under Burge's supervision.
Mark Clements spent almost three decades behind bars after detectives allegedly tortured him into confessing to setting an apartment building fire that killed four people. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has apologized for such misconduct, but Clements said torture victims deserve financial compensation.
Clements and members of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Project at City Hall demanded the City Council Finance Committee hold hearings on an ordinance that would set up a $20 million reparations fund for torture victims.
"Just apologizing, it does not give me a job, it does not pay my bills, it does not get me on the CTA, but at least this reparation will give me some type of normalcy," he said.
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Darrell Cannon served 24 years in prison for murder before prosecutors agreed to throw out his conviction in 2004. He alleged he was tortured into a murder confession when detectives under Burge's command put a loaded shotgun in his mouth, and shocked his genitals with a cattle prod.
"So many families have been destroyed by that simpleton who is now in a halfway house," he said of Burge. "See, I don't curse. I can't use the words I really, really want to use in speaking about him."
Finance Committee Chairman Ed Burke (14th), a former police officer, has been non-committal on holding hearings on reparations, but a majority of aldermen support the plan.
The city already has paid more than $100 million in settlements and legal fees from lawsuits filed by Burge victims.
