Chicago Cop Who Denied Torture Is Indicted
On television and in the movies, when a police detective wants a killer to confess, he whacks the killer upside the head and the killer obliges with a written admission of guilt. In real life, coerced confessions are prohibited by the Constitution. That doesn't stop the occasional officer from using TV tactics to get what he wants.
Jon Burge is a former Chicago police lieutenant whose interrogation tactics (primarily directed toward black suspects) included beatings, electric shocks, and mock Russian roulette. The torture of suspects in which he and his colleagues engaged resulted in civil rights suits against Chicago and a federal investigation.
Burge lied to the federal investigators and he lied to lawyers who questioned him with regard to the civil rights suits, consistently denying any knowledge of, or involvement in, the abuse of suspects. Today an indictment of Burge for perjury and obstruction of justice with regard to those lies was unsealed. Burge was arrested before dawn this morning in his Florida home. [more ...]
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