Probe: Black Chicago Suspects Tortured
Investigators distribute copies of a Report of the Special State's Attorney as Chief Deputy Special State's Attorney Robert D. Boyle, with the Office of the Special Prosecutor discusses the the contents of the report authorized by the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County into allegations of torture by by members of the Chicago Police Department Wednesday, July 19, 2006 in Chicago. Special prosecutors investigating allegations that police tortured black suspects in the 1970s and '80s said Wednesday they had found evidence of mistreatment, but any crimes are now too old to prosecute. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
(M. Spencer Green - AP)
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006; 6:19 PM
CHICAGO -- Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked or otherwise tortured scores of black suspects in the 1970s and 1980s to try to extract confessions from them, prosecutors reported Wednesday.
However, the prosecutors _ appointed by a Cook County judge four years ago to look into torture allegations _ said that the cases are too old or too weak to prosecute anyone now.
Prosecutors Robert D. Boyle and Edward Egan said they found evidence that police abused at least half the 148 suspects whose cases were reviewed. Nearly all of the suspects were black.
Among other things, the suspects claimed that police beat them, played mock Russian roulette, administered electric shocks with a cattle prod-like device and a crank-operated "black box," and threw typewriter covers over their heads to make them gasp for air.
The investigators were not able to substantiate all of the allegations, but made it clear they believed many of the claims, including the use of the black box on at least one man, and said that in the majority of cases, suspects were beaten with fists, feet or telephone books.
Boyle and Egan said that in only three cases involving a total of five former officers was there enough evidence to prosecute, but the three-year statute of limitations has run out.
"We only wish that we could indict on these three cases," Boyle said, after a $6.1 million investigation that involved more than 33,300 documents, the issuance of 217 grand jury subpoenas and interviews of more than 700 people.
Among those five officers was Jon Burge, a lieutenant who commanded a violent-crimes unit and the so-called "midnight crew" that allegedly participated in most of the alleged torture.
Neither Burge nor anyone else has ever been charged, but Burge was fired in 1991 after a police board found that a murder suspect was abused while in custody. Burge's attorney has said that Burge never tortured anyone.
In their 300-page report, the prosecutors accused then-police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek of dereliction of duty and said he and a former top official at the Cook County State's Attorney's office, William Kunkle, failed to pursue an investigation into allegations of torture.
"They can blame me for whatever they want to blame me for," Brzeczek said. "I know what I did was correct. It was not dereliction of duty."
Kunkle, now a Cook County circuit judge, was not available for comment, his staff said.
