Chicago Creating Reparations Fund For Police Torture Survivors

CHICAGO (AP) -- Victims of police torture under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge would receive an apology and access to a $5.5 million fund under a reparations package that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a number of Chicago aldermen proposed Tuesday.

More than 100 people have accused Burge and officers under his command of shocking, suffocating and beating them into giving false confessions in the 1970s and 1980s. The city has so far paid about $100 million in lawsuit settlements to Burge victims.

The package also will include the creation of a permanent memorial to the victims and curriculum in eighth and tenth grade Chicago Public Schools history classes. The city also will offer services to victims and their families such as free tuition and psychological counseling.

"Today, we stand together as a city to try and right those wrongs, and to bring this dark chapter of Chicago's history to a close," Emanuel said. The package will be introduced to the Chicago City Council on Wednesday.

Torture victim Darrell Cannon said that "for those of us who have been fighting and struggling to set a landmark, this is a landmark. This is the moment. What we do here will not be undone. People across the country will talk about Chicago."

Cannon was freed after 24 years in prison when a review board determined that evidence used to convict him was tainted. Cannon said police pretended to load a shotgun, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger to terrify him into confessing to a murder that he didn't commit.

Burge, 67, was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993. He was never criminally charged with torture, but was convicted in 2010 of lying about torture in a civil case and served 4 1/2 years in federal custody. He was released from a Florida halfway house in February.

Attorneys Joey Mogul and Flint Taylor, who have represented many Burge victims, called it an "historic" agreement that their Chicago Torture Justice Memorials and Amnesty International reached with the city.

"Its passage and implementation will go a long way to remove the longstanding stain of police torture from the conscience of the city," the attorneys said in a statement.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.