Chicago Police Used Torture, Report Alleges

Police officers and commanders in Chicago engaged in “systematic” torture and abuse of suspects over a 13-year period, according to a report released Friday.

The abuse, which took place between 1973 and 1986, included electric shock, beatings, suffocation and psychological torture, according to the report, which had been prepared in September, 1990, by a civilian oversight board but had been kept secret by police officials.

An attorney representing alleged brutality victims called the report “unprecedented,” both because of the systematic nature of the abuse cited and because the allegations were made by the Office of Professional Standards, a civilian body that has often been criticized for failing to vigorously pursue complaints against the police.

The abuse cited in the report took place in a poor, largely black, neighborhood in the city’s South Side known as Area II.

“It certainly does support what we’ve been saying--that there was systematic torture in Area II and that the command personnel not only condoned it but participated in it,” attorney Flint Taylor said.

Taylor had requested that U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur, who is presiding over a police brutality case, order the release of the report. The judge did so this week, along with other documents that involve brutality investigations.

Mayor Richard M. Daley disputed the report’s conclusions. “This is a report by an individual,” he told reporters. “It is not fully documented. It is a lot of rumors.”

He conceded that police brutality exists in Chicago but said: “It is not systematic.”

Police Supt. LeRoy Martin, who has been criticized for withholding the report, said he had objected to releasing it until its conclusions could be validated. He disclosed Friday that he had asked the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization that consults with police departments nationwide, to review the study.

The foundation’s preliminary findings are that “the methodology used for the report is flawed and unsubstantiated, bringing into serious question the credibility of (its) conclusions,” Martin said.

Allegations of systematic torture and abuse have been leveled against the Police Department for years, resulting in a number of court judgments against the department as well as a call for investigations by the human rights organization Amnesty International. Lawyers representing abuse victims have collected affidavits from more than 40 individuals who alleged elaborate torture techniques.

Many of the alleged victims claimed previously that they were attached to an electroshock device that police officers kept in a black box. Shocks allegedly were administered via wires and clips to suspects’ penises, testicles, ear lobes and arm pits. Others said they passed out after having plastic bags secured over their heads, stopping the flow of oxygen. When they recovered, some alleged, the bags were put over their heads again.

In a number of cases, suspects in police custody alleged that officers stuck guns with empty chambers into their mouths or pointed them at their heads and pulled the triggers.

Others alleged that they were hanged from hooks by handcuffs that had been attached to their wrists and that they were beaten on the bottoms of their feet and on their testicles.

Portions of the report released Friday did not go into such detail, but the document noted: “The preponderance of the evidence is that abuse did occur and that it was systematic. . . . The type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beating, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture.”

The report further stated that “particular command members were aware of the systematic abuse and perpetuated it either by actively participating in same or failing to take any action to bring it to an end.”

According to the report, 28 of 50 abuse incidents investigated occurred in Area II police headquarters; the rest occurred at other locations. Twenty-six of the alleged victims filed complaints that were investigated by either police internal affairs officials or by the civilian Office of Professional Standards. Of those, 25 were dismissed and one remained open at the time of the report.

Civil lawsuits were filed in nine instances, resulting in five settlements, one mistrial, one dismissal, one summary judgment for the defendants and one case still pending.

In charge of Area II during the period covered by the report was Commander Jon Burge, who was fired by Martin in November over the allegations. As part of the dismissal process, Burge and two of his officers face internal police hearings on the abuse complaints Monday.

Martin has been criticized for waiting more than a year after completion of the report to fire Burge. Taylor, the attorney for the alleged victims, on Friday accused Martin, who in 1983 was commander of the district that includes Area II, of a “cover-up.”

“We have a situation where the . . . superintendent was the direct supervisor of the person responsible for the pattern of abuse,” Taylor said.

Although Martin was commander of the district for only one year, the lawyer said it was a time in which abuse was rampant following the killing of two police officers in 1982. In a drive to solve the murders, Area II police officers arrested and abused a large number of black suspects, Taylor and others allege.

The suspects who were tortured, according to the report released Friday, had been arrested for crimes ranging from murder to armed robbery to rape. Some of them were released after being tortured and were never charged, Taylor said.

“All of the victims were black or Latino, so far as we’ve seen, and the people who were doing the torturing were white officers,” Taylor said. He said that many of the alleged victims claim the abusive police officers made racial slurs.