For nearly 20 years, officers of the Chicago Police Department tortured more than 100 people. How survivors and their lawyers won a decades-long fight.
In 2005 Standish Willis, a lawyer from Chicago, was home with a broken ankle. He was working on the case of a man who claimed that, years ago, he had been tortured by police. On the radio in the background, President George Bush argued that the U.S. military’s actions in Abu Ghraib did not constitute torture. That’s when Willis had an idea: “We could make the torture case international, and embarrass the United States.”
On May 6, after decades of lobbying, international intervention, and grassroots organizing, Chicago became the first U.S. city to offer reparations to victims of police violence. From 1972-1991 more than 110 mostly African American men were tortured into confessions by Jon Burge, a police lieutenant, and his subordinates.