EXTRA: Has the FOP made Burge & Van Dyke into the cop Odd Couple

It has been a full day since Fraternal Order of Police officials chose to make a spectacle out of the death of one-time Chicago Police Cmdr., and I’m still trying to figure out what they think they’ve accomplished.

Why would Jason Van Dyke want his name … 

Because if I were connected to the criminal defense of Jason Van Dyke, a police officer currently on trial for murder involving the shooting death of a teenage criminal suspect, the last thing I’d want anyone doing is bringing up the name of Burge in any sort of pairing.

YET THAT IS what was done on Wednesday, when FOP union officials showed up at the Criminal Courts Building (where they knew a slew of reporter-type people would be present to cover Van Dyke) and let it be known that Burge – who retired to Florida with his full police pension benefits – is dead. He was 70.

Dean Angelo, the one-time FOP president, said (amongst other things), “I don’t know that Jon Burge got a fair shake based on the years and years and years of service that he gave to the city.”

As though we’re supposed to think Burge was the ultimate victim because he wound up serving prison time for perjury committed while testifying in lawsuits filed due to his actions as a police officer.

He never was convicted for those acts, which consisted of countless incidents of brutality by he and the officers under his command. One could joke that Burge is just like Al Capone, the ‘20s era gangster whose tax evasion conviction seemed downright petty compared to the bloodshed that occurred in Chicago during his lifetime.

OF COURSE, IT was the people of Chicago who ultimately paid for Burge’s behavior. The city had to pay more than $100 million in legal settlements and reparations to those men who wound up doing prison time because of the confessions that Burge is said to have beaten out of them.

… tied to that of Jon Burge?

I’m sure Angelo wants to believe Burge was a decent cop who got criminalized by people who were “human vermin” themselves. Perhaps he thinks we’re on the verge of doing something similar to Van Dyke – whose offense was the repeated shooting of a teenager with a knife who could have become a threat to the public.

I’ll be the first to admit that Van Dyke may have a legitimate claim to self-defense in his case. That's what his ongoing trial is all about. Which is why I find it odd that anyone acting in his defense would want to bring up Burge.

Just hearing the name will bring up bad memories from Chicago’s past and create an association by guilt for Van Dyke. Something I’d think they’d want to avoid. Instead of putting our collective Burge memories into the city’s past.

  -30-

Not often that governor, mayor set foot on other’s political ‘turf’; that's an issue

Gov. Bruce Rauner deserves a bit of praise for having the nerve to set foot not only in City Hall, but at the City Council on Wednesday to make a long-shot attempt to persuade aldermen of the validity of his “turnaround agenda.”

That being the series of anti-organized labor measures he’d like to see implemented across Illinois because our state’s governor believes it is the fault of labor unions that many corporations cannot be even more profitable and beneficial to the state’s economy.

THE CITY COUNCIL already has made it clear that not only will they refuse to join the ranks of the many rural communities that have passed resolutions in support of Rauner, they’re prepared to lead the fight against the governor.

That led to Rauner requesting a chance to speak before the City Council during their meeting on Wednesday. Aldermen pushed during the morning to complete their other business (including approval of reparations payments for victims of police brutality from the minions of one-time Commander Jon Burge and a tribute to the late Cardinal Francis George) so that Rauner could give a noon-time address uninterrupted.

This is rare. Governors and mayors in Illinois and Chicago respectively often meet. There has to be some sort of a relationship between the two positions if anything is to get done in this state.

But they usually deal with each other, then rely on the other to get their political minions to go along. Almost like this is a third-rate attempt at remaking "West Side Story."

IN SHORT, EMANUEL being counted on to get aldermen to back a Rauner-desired goal. Although in this case, even Emanuel has expressed opposition to the labor-related measures that Rauner has made a priority of his first four months as governor.

Now I’m not about to get into the specifics of what Rauner said to the aldermen. Personally, I don’t think it matters one bit. I doubt many people were listening to what the governor said.

In fact, a part of me wonders if Rauner’s desire was to be booed and heckled and have the substance of what he said completely ignored. So that he could go out and tell other people how rude and inconsiderate (he’d probably use harsher language) the Chicago politicos were.

Make this a Chicago versus the rest of Illinois issue, and maybe he has a chance of forcing city opposition into having the “turnaround” rammed down their collective throat.

THEN AGAIN, PICKING the Wednesday council session was an odd choice if Rauner were really trying to sway people. Because it is the last gathering of aldermen before the newly-elected City Council members are sworn in.

About one-third of the people who heard Rauner on Wednesday will no longer be in the council. In fact, the trend seems to be that the replacement aldermen will be people of a more politically progressive nature who will be even more inclined to oppose the governor.

They’re the ones who got elected because of the sentiment that Emanuel is too inclined to back business interests and be too chummy with people like Rauner.

Perhaps the governor thought the lame ducks would be more sympathetic. Then again, the whole point of lame duck status is that they don’t have the power to do much of anything any longer.

SO THE GOVERNOR spoke to the City Council. It sounds nice. It would be nice if the governor tried to have a real relationship with these political people – instead of acting like they’re the opposition.

Then again, it’s not like Chicago mayors are all that eager to spend time in Springfield before the General Assembly.

I remember former Mayor Richard M. Daley would make what seemed to be his annual one-day trip to Springfield to be seen by the Democrats and remind them (including Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, just in case he started to think his position was bigger than ‘Da Mare’) who was really the boss.

Emanuel isn’t any different in his dealings with the Illinois Legislature. Perhaps this attitude of politicians having their ‘turf’ goes a long way toward explaining why certain things never can seem to get done properly.

  -30-

Put 'Burge' name up with 'Capone' as those who '"got away" with something

By the time you read this, one-time Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge will be a free man. For some of you, that thought is bound to cause a knot in your stomach.


For Burge is the police official who wound up doing some prison time because of allegations that he and the officers under his command at the then-Pullman Area detective unit were overzealous in their use of force when interrogating criminal suspects.


SOME WILL EASILY say their conduct amounted to torture. It easily is a stain on the reputation of the Chicago Police Department as despicable as any other moment in that department's history.


As it turned out, Burge didn't go to prison because people got tortured. By the time anyone got around to seriously investigating Burge's conduct, the statute of limitations had long passed.


But in a lawsuit about the conduct, Burge denied he did anything improper. That led to a court deciding that Burge had committed perjury. Just like Al Capone being nailed for income tax evasion, rather than for any of the crimes his organization committed that made the Roarin' 20's so wild in Chicago.


All of which is why Burge has spent the past three-and-a-half years at a federal correctional facility in North Carolina. But his actual incarceration ended Thursday. He was sent to a half-way house in Tampa, Fla., as part of the standard process of shifting an inmate back to regular society.


THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported that it was possible officials could decide that Burge shouldn't have to do any time at the half-way house, but instead could return to his home in Apollo Beach, Fla., right away.


He'd have to wear one of those ankle bracelets and know that federal officials were constantly watching his movement. But still, he'd be home -- in the place to which he retired after he was fired from the Chicago Police Department back in the early 1990s.


That is the fact that has some people all outraged. They would have wanted some sort of perpetual incarceration, or punishment that was life-lasting -- although I'm sure the fact that Burge can't call himself a police officer any longer is a sort of punishment to him.


They're also the ones who are upset that Burge continues to get a pension of about $4,000 per month -- he's not going to be destitute. All because the act of perjury that resulted in a criminal conviction and incarceration occurred AFTER he was removed from the Police Department.


ACTIVIST TYPES WERE expected to be at City Hall on Thursday to protest in favor of the City Council passing a measure that would allow for reparations payments, so to speak, to people who are tortured by police. Although I suspect it would wind up only applying to future incidents, and wouldn't result in any of Burge's victims -- who have cost city and county officials millions of dollars in lawsuits -- getting any additional money.


It's probably for the best that Burge is now off in Florida enjoying a retiree's fate. Because we probably would wind up seeing the public do something stupid to seek retribution if he ever tried to come back to Chicago.


Because this is going to be a case that some of us will never get over, while the bulk of us do a long simmer in the frying pan of life to try to burn away our disgust with the sense that the police officer "got away" with something serious.


  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Ought to be much about nothing

The fact that 33^rd Ward Alderman Deborah Mell is getting divorced ought to be the ultimate ho-hum attempt at a news story; something that comes across as cheap and petty even for an Independence Day holiday weekend.

 

But Mell’s recent announcement, which she made via her Twitter account, that her marriage of three years has come to an end is gaining attention. To the point where I’m wondering how many petty people are going to try to draw this out into something it’s not.

 

WHAT CAPTURES ATTENTION about this marriage was the fact that Mell’s wife was Christin Baker. The couple became engaged in 2010 (with Mell, then a state representative, making a pronouncement on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives).

 

Then, because they couldn’t wait for Illinois to get its act together on the issue of legitimate marriage for gay couples, they went to Iowa to be married.

 

If they had held out for an Illinois wedding, it wouldn’t have occurred until earlier this year – perhaps during the past month.

 

But then, it would have been too late. For the couple seems to have irreconcilable differences. News accounts indicate Baker has taken a new job in Birmingham, Ala. They have split.

 

I’M SURE SOME people are going to rant and rage against gay marriage and claim this ought to be evidence that such unions are somehow unnatural and unlasting.

 

Which is nonsense, of course. Just look at the number of so-called straight couples who can’t make it past a couple of years of marriage. Was their time together any less legitimate? If it was, perhaps we ought to be abolishing the concept of marriage altogether.

 

Not that anybody with sense is calling for that. If anything, all this means is that partnerships and pairings are fragile and filled with potential for problems. The last thing those couples need are harassment from those with such ideological hang-ups that they need to get a hobby. Perhaps they can rush out to Hobby Lobby to find something to do from people inclined to share their hang-ups about life?

 

What else is notable about life following Independence Day on the shores of Lake Michigan?

 

COP BUDDIES STICKING TOGETHER?: The Illinois Supreme Court issued a ruling this week that upholds the ability of one-time Pullman Area Violent Crimes Commander Jon Burge to keep his pension – even though he’s the cop who led the far South Side unit that reportedly was beating confessions out of criminal suspects on a regular basis.

 

Burge, 66, and retired for more than two decades, is now in a federal correctional center in North Carolina. But for the act of perjury in a lawsuit related to his actions; not for the actions themselves.

 

The state’s high court ruled that a Cook County judge was correct to prevent the Illinois attorney general’s office from intervening in the case when a police pension board upheld Burge’s retirement payments.

 

It seems the board members who were former police officers favored Burge, saying his criminal act came after he left the police. They out-voted the non-former police officer members who would have revoked retirement benefits.

 

DON’T YOU DARE CUT RETIREE PENSIONS: It’s going to be interesting to see just how officials are capable of reforming the way public pension programs are funded.

 

For the state Supreme Court also ruled this week that retirees can’t be forced to pay for the retirement benefits previously promised.

 

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan is claiming that’s a narrow legal issue, but others see it as broader and a move in the direction of saying that there’s going to have to be some other form of reform. Either that, or the retirees literally will bankrupt Illinois government into oblivion.

 

As if Friday night fireworks didn’t give you enough of a headache.

 

BAD ATTITUDES IN BRIDGEVIEW?: The Chicago Fire professional soccer team felt compelled to issue a statement this week, telling their fans to watch their mouths.

 

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Spanish-speaking fans have taken to using slurs for homosexuals to taunt opposing players. Before you start attacking Latinos, keep in mind that some peoples’ extent of the Spanish language are the slurs and obscenities.

 

Which bothers the team because they want people to make the trek out to their suburban Bridgeview stadium to watch games – particularly in the weeks following the World Cup.

 

Perhaps hoping that some newly-converted types will want to see live matches and will want to spend money, much money, while at Toyota Park.

 

  -30-

Will Chicago start spewing, get stagnated by, the “reparations” label?

It seems that some people want the stain of one-time police Commander Jon Burge to live on for a long, long time.



The future Chicago Police Dept. image?

Because that’s what’s going to happen if a measure introduced before the City Council this week ever becomes law.

THE ACTIVITIES OF the then-Pullman Area violent crimes detectives who allegedly abused to the point of torture the people they were arresting for assorted crimes remain in the news even with Burge sitting in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Because we periodically get the reports of the City Council (on behalf of the Police Department) and the Cook County Board (on behalf of the state’s attorney’s office) giving their approval to settle out-of-court various lawsuits filed by people who suffered physical torture anywhere from about 1972 to 1991.

Which is when the public outcry reached a peak intense enough that Burge finally had to retire. Ultimately, the only thing prosecutors were able to get on him was a perjury conviction – for his testimony during some of the civil lawsuits when he said he never tortured nobody!

Under the measure introduced by 1^st Ward Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno and 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins, people with claims of torture would go before a to-be-created city committee that could issue them reparation payments that could consist of counseling, job training, help with tuition if they want to attend one of the schools in the City Colleges of Chicago system, and something formally resembling an official policy.

Will this CPD image be supplanted by Burge?

THE PART THAT gets my attention though is that history lessons would have to be taught about the extent of Burge’s activity on the Far South Side all those decades ago.

I can already envision the arguments we’re going to get from people who are going to want the worst possible spin placed on the incident AND from those who desperately want to believe that police are justified in using such physical treatment on people they want to write off as criminals.

Burge is going to live on in our collective memory. I just wonder if THIS is going to be the Chicago Police Department image that will overtake the conduct of cops at the 1968 Democratic Convention, just like that event overtook the police behavior at Haymarket Square.

Part of what bothers me about this is the fact that proponents of this change want to use the “reparations” label to describe it. That has already become a loaded term for those people who want to ignore the impact of slavery upon our nation and our society. My own stance on that issue is that reparations should have been paid to the slaves themselves, and that our nation should be ashamed of itself for not having followed through on that "40 Acres and a Mule" promise.

THEY’RE GOING TO gain some moral outrage over wanting to reject this idea as well!

It ensures we’re likely to never be able to overcome the emotional damage our city suffers from Burge if we’re picking up on such loaded terms. This could become a matter just as intense as those people who want to refer to the experience of slavery in this country as a “holocaust” – regardless of the fact that it is the wrong word to use.

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with those who suffered at the hands of people who used their official authority to abuse the rights of the public – or at least those people in the public they didn’t like much.

The past image of the CPD's violent behavior

 

But I can’t help but see the lawsuit settlements (WBEZ-FM radio reports that some $84 million has been paid by city government alone) as being the restitution given to those who actually suffered.

IF IT SOUNDS like I’m saying that someone who has a gripe should take it to the courts, perhaps I am.

I’m just skeptical that this latest measure will do anything positive. Which might be the real damage from Jon Burge to the city.

Creating an abusive legacy for the city that just won’t die.

  -30-

Emanuel offers a rare apology

Call it one of the rules of thumb of government – when they get sued, they inevitably will offer to settle the legal action rather than have to fight in court.

EMANUEL: Chicago's sorry

It’s not that government doesn’t think much of its actions. It’s more that they want to save money, and they often figure that throwing some cash at someone as a settlement is cheaper than a court fight.

IN FACT, I have heard it specified by some governments that once the cost of legal fees potentially becomes larger than the cost of a settlement, then the law suit must be settled.

Part of what lets government get away with this attitude is the fact that the settlement agreement often includes provisions that prohibit the person receiving a settlement from discussing the issue in the future.

In many cases, they have to wind up signing a statement that specifically says that the government entity did not commit any inappropriate act. It probably did, but the people who file the lawsuits and who suffered the harm in the first place often are so emotionally whipped and eager enough for the final compensation that they let government “off the hook” (so to speak) by allowing them to go blameless in the official record of events.

This very attitude is why I am still shocked (some several hours after the City Council met Wednesday) at the actions of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

THE ALDERMEN GAVE their approval to a $12.3 million payment to settle two lawsuits against the city because of the actions of one-time Pullman Area Violent Crimes Commander Jon Burge.

He’s the guy who back in the 1980s had his detectives running roughshod on the rights of people he wanted to believe were criminal suspects. Tactics often amounted to torture to get confessions that wound up sending people to prison for many years – until serious studies of the evidence caused the cases to crack.

It’s not a shock that the city is settling the case. It seems every government entity these days is eager to pay what they have to in order to make the Burge era go away.

Will Burge ever be sorry?

What is astounding about all of this was that Emanuel on Wednesday felt compelled to offer an apology! An actual admission from the “Man on Five” that the city screwed up.

OF COURSE, EMANUEL himself has nothing to lose – since this all happened before he was at all relevant to the political scene in Chicago. This is a case that smears the legacy of Richard M. Daley; since he was the state’s attorney whose staff actually used the tainted evidence to gain convictions – AND also disregarded the speculation years ago that the cops were abusing people.

As Emanuel put it, “This is a dark chapter on the history of the city of Chicago. I want to build a future for the city of Chicago. I don’t want to just deal with the past.

“But we have to close the books on this. We have to reconcile our past and start to write a future and a new chapter for the children of the city of Chicago and for the city,” Emanuel told reporter-types present for the council session.

That goes way farther than most government officials would even dream of going in terms of dealing with ugly incidents in their past behavior.

IT IS SO out of character, particularly since there are those people in our past who like to deny that organized crime elements ever played a part in our city’s history – while others like to dress them up in comic book-like colors to make the bloodshed of the past seem like an essential part of Chicago’s character.

But an apology is an apology. Wednesday is a rare day for the city.

Because I doubt that Emanuel will be willing to offer up mea culpas for many other issues, no matter how wrong the city might be.

There’s only so much muck a man will be willing to eat!

  -30-

Conspiracy theory, or element of truth?

DAVIS: Clueless? Or Blunt-spoken?

Throughout the decades that Monique Davis has represented portions of the Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods in the Illinois House of Representatives, she has made many comments that have been interpreted by some as absurd, if not downright loopy!

But I have always tried to keep in mind the fact that we in this society are not all alike. We don’t look alike. We certainly don’t think alike. The people who voted her into office probably have no problem with her.

SO WHILE MANY people these days are jumping down Davis’ throat for her latest theory (telling a Detroit radio station that many people in her community think the police might have something to do with all the urban violence taking place against young people these days), I’m wondering if she’s on to something.

Davis gave her interview to WCHB-AM in Detroit on Tuesday when she said: “I’m going to tell you what some suspicions have been, and people have whispered to me; they’re not sure that black people are shooting all of these children. There’s some suspicion – and I don’t want to spread this, but I’m just going to tell you what I’ve been hearing – they suspect maybe the police are killing some of these kids.”

WBBM-AM found out about this, and tracked Davis down, reporting Friday her admission that she doesn’t know who is doing the killings, but not exactly denying that she thinks the police could be responsible in some way. On Friday, Davis held a press conference to say that some police officers are among her friends, and reiterated the thought that she doesn't know who killed anyone.

They also gave the Chicago Police Department a chance to respond – finding a spokesman who came up with a comment that technically is a “no comment,” but also makes it clear that the police resent any implication that they’re anything other than heroic in their behavior.

WHAT THIS ISSUE really comes down to is a matter of just how much faith one has in the concept of law enforcement in general – Protectors of the Public? Or Municipal Muscle, meant to keep in line those people whom officials want to pipe down?

Those who believe the former are going to be amongst Davis’ biggest detractors. They’re not going to want to hear any kind of talk that implies police are a problem.

The most hard core of those individuals are the ones who still try to defend one-time Pullman Area police Commander Jon Burge – claiming that the criminal element he was dealing with required the hard-fisted approach that he took toward defendants who later were found to be innocent victims.

I’m sure that particular element is a minority of the overall population. The general trust of police is a larger element.

BUT WE SHOULDN’T discount the fact that there is a sizable number of people who are skeptical of law enforcement authority. Some of them may well have theories that the police are, if not killing young black people, sitting back and doing nothing to try to control the high-crime rates in urban areas.

As for those who may well think there are police going around killing black people, put them at the far opposite end of the ideological train of thought that thinks Jon Burge some sort of victim, and a miscarriage of justice.

Personally, I have never bought into the idea of police as particularly heroic. I’m more inclined to think that the overwhelming majority of police are just human beings – no smarter or dumber than you or I.

Except that they do a particularly difficult job where, if something goes wrong, people can die.

SO IF WE view Davis’ thoughts of a reflection of what is being expressed by the community (or at least a segment of it), perhaps we’d see a lesson in all of this.

Perhaps the police reaction would be to realize they have a perception problem, rather than getting all huffy and hostile toward anyone who doesn’t worship their presence.

  -30-

Appeals Court rejects Burge’s claim people lied about his lies about torture

It would have been a real sick April Fool’s joke if the Court of Appeals based in Chicago had actually granted the appeal filed by one-time police Commander Jon Burge.

Burge, of course, is the one-time head of the police at the Pullman Area police headquarters whose detectives engaged in behavior that most of us think of as torture.

HECK, THE REASON that Far South Side-based headquarters is now called the Calumet Area is because Burge’s behavior left such a nasty taint on the “Pullman” label.

Not that Burge was ever prosecuted for such behavior. What ultimately got him under the attention of the U.S. attorney’s office for prosecution was the fact that he repeatedly denied that his officers did anything wrong, which constituted perjury when he said it in opposition to lawsuits that were filed against the city.

It is because of that perjury conviction that Burge now lives at a federal correctional center in North Carolina – from which he is scheduled to be released Feb. 14, 2015.

That will be a miserable Valentine’s Day for the people who have to live with the memory of what Burge’s officers did in their attempts to preserve law and order within Chicago.

MAYBE THAT’S WHAT old-man Richard J. Daley was talking about when he had his slip of the tongue and said the police were here to “preserve disorder.”

Of course, I’m all for the rights of the inmates to be preserved. It is what makes our justice system superior to those of many others (Amanda Knox having to fear Italy is ridiculous) in the world.

Burge disgust was not limited

Even in cases such as Burge. So I have no problem with the idea that he appealed his conviction. I’m just glad to see that there wasn’t somebody on the Seventh Circuit that is based in Chicago and oversees appeals filed in the Midwestern U.S. who actually took it seriously.

Because Burge’s appeal basically says that the people who are accusing him of wrongdoing are lying. As though the word of a police officer should always be taken above others.

THE PROBLEM WITH that line of logic is why the Burge case is so offensive to begin with. It attempts to use the badge as a shield to cover one’s inappropriate behavior – when in reality we ought to be expecting our law enforcement-types to conduct themselves at a higher level than we do other individuals in our society!

His appeal literally argues that since his testimony in those lawsuits did not prevent a judge from ruling in their favor, it means that he didn’t affect the outcome of any case.

As though he thinks he is above prosecution.

It is embarrassing to think that we have people like this thinking of themselves as legitimate sources of law and order. It is the reason that we have people who just don’t trust the police, and are skeptical to cooperate.

WHICH IS WHY it would have been a sick joke if the appeals court had actually ruled in Burge’s behavior in an opinion that was released on Monday. It was reassuring to see that the appellate panel that ruled in Burge’s case was unanimously opposed.

Now I know there are certain types of people who are prepared to disagree with me. They’re the ones who proclaim themselves to be all about “law and order” and “respect” in our society who say that these officers are merely doing what is necessary to deal with criminals.

They’re the ones who saw the high total of slayings in Chicago earlier this year who probably want to say that justifies some brutal behavior against defendants.

Sorry, but I just don’t buy it – particularly since the places on this planet that do permit such behavior legally are usually ones we wouldn’t want to live in.

BESIDES, IT JUST isn’t necessary. Take the high level of attacks that occurred this weekend in the downtown area. Police were able to respond to many of them almost immediately, with nearly 30 arrests made.

It would be a shame if the Police Department behaving professionally had been overshadowed by a Burge-related reminder of when it conducted itself badly.

  -30-

Should this have lasted a little longer?

There’s a chance that we will stop officially thinking about Jon Burge, the one-time police commander on the city’s Far South Side who has long been accused of using brutality against those who wound up at the old Pullman Area police headquarters.

A City Council committee on Monday recommended a $7 million payment to settle a lawsuit filed by two men who claim they were tortured while in police custody by officers who were merely following the lead of Burge.

THAT SETTLEMENT IS likely to get final approval come Wednesday. The City Council could put an end to this fiasco that has lingered over Chicago for so many decades.

Burge himself could soon become just another inmate of the Federal Bureau of Prisons system – where he is serving time not for his violent actions as a cop but because he denied them during testimony he gave in a federal court case.

In short, perjury. Just like how Al Capone did his time in prison for income tax evasion – rather than anything he or his racketeers actually did in ratcheting up the violence in Chicago back in the 1920s (an image our city still is trying to live down).

The part of Burge himself becoming just another schnook serving time in prison doesn’t bother me.

YET AFTER ALL these years, I have to admit that a part of me is bothered to see this lawsuit get settled. Just like the Cook County Board earlier this year was eager to settle the lawsuit filed against it because a Felony Review officer working for the state's attorney's office didn't realize how flawed the evidence was in these cases.

For it seems that city officials were more concerned about preventing a deposition from being given in the lawsuit by the man who was Cook County state’s attorney back at the time that Burge and his cop crew were at their peak.

DALEY: What would he have said?



None other than Richard M. Daley, who went on to become the longtime mayor of Chicago and is now an attorney with serious connections (not bad for a guy who had to try repeatedly before he could even pass the bar exam in Illinois so that he could call himself a lawyer).

It really seems that city officials were more concerned about keeping Daley from embarrassing himself (and the city by association) than they were in providing the defendants with compensation for their ordeals.

WHICH INCLUDED NOT only their moments of police torture but the ordeal of a criminal conviction and decades in prison – before it was determined that the police conduct tainted the whole process to the point where it had to be undone.

Since the lawsuit is being settled, there’s no longer a reason for Daley to ever have to open his mouth and talk about the matter while under oath.

Which probably means we’re never going to truly know what happened all those years ago. The Burge name will forevermore cause certain people to smirk, and others the scowl.

The former will be the ones who enjoy the image of a cop “getting what he deserves,” while the latter will be the ones who think that whatever Burge and his crew did is somehow justified – and that the people who suffered somehow “had it coming.”

AS THOUGH ANYONE deserves to have a plastic bad placed over their head by someone who wants the threat of suffocation to serve as the impetus to providing a self-incriminating statement that made a cop’s job of getting a criminal charge against someone, anyone (who cares who really did it) all the more easier.

If anything, that latter attitude is going to linger for years. It may be one that we will never shake off.

Some people will be convinced that the real injustice was committed against the police, and that somehow the money that will be paid out in the settlements is somehow being wasted.

Which is nonsense. But it is the outcome that we’re going to face because our city officials seemed more interested in not doing anything to resolve this ugly situation, and were more concerned with just making it go away!

  -30-

This is why “Burge” is wrong

I hate the idea that a man now serving prison time for his involvement in the gang rape and torture of a young woman may well be able to start thinking of himself as the “victim.”

Because as I understand it, even by this own man’s admission, he held an iron to the thighs of the young woman to burn her (he claims only his friends forced themselves sexually upon her).

BUT WE MAY have to start thinking of Stanley Wrice – who went on trial in 1983 and received a 100-year prison sentence for the 1982 attack on the woman at Wrice’s South Side home – as the wronged-one.

Because when he was arrested, he came under the control of the detectives working at the then-Pullman Area police headquarters (down on 111^th Street) who were supervised by police Commander Jon Burge.

We have heard so many stories throughout the years of the degree to which Burge and his crew used force to extract confessions from those who they thought were guilty of crimes – even though there is substantial evidence that many of them were merely guilty of “being black.”

The likelihood that Wrice underwent treatment possibly worse than what was done to the girl (who ultimately was abandoned on a side street, where she walked to a local gas station to call police) was used (rightfully so) by the Supreme Court of Illinois on Thursday to justify new hearings.

A JUDGE IS going to have to decide how much of the incriminating testimony Wrice made against himself was coerced by Burge violence. If the outcome is severe enough, it could result in a new trial.

At the very least, it could wind up with a new sentencing – one that would end his prison term much earlier than the 2041 release date he now faces.

BURGE: Still causing problems



Considering how long he has been in prison, he may well get sentenced to a term that he has already served. Which would leave this man in a position where he could claim to have been incarcerated for too long a time period – which would put the state in a position of having to compensate him for the damage done to his life.

Which is disgusting, because there is strong reason to believe that he did commit the particular offense. Prosecutors had hoped the state Supreme Court would leave the matter alone – instead of determining that coercion by police is severe enough to taint any legal outcome.

“IT IS NEVER harmless error,” the high court wrote, in their ruling this week.

That is the real harm caused by the Burge behavior of the late 1970s into the ‘80s. It has police acting like little more than thugs – perhaps more criminal than the individuals they were arresting.

We needed protection more from the police than the muggers and rapists of the police districts that patrolled the Far South Side of Chicago. Which is a sad commentary on our society.

The fact that the Burge conduct is now resulting in a situation where a potential wrongdoer gets more respect than he ought to deserve is despicable. As far as I’m concerned, it is the reason I can’t feel the least bit of sympathy for Burge – who ultimately got picked up by federal prosecutors for a perjury charge for which he is now serving a 4 ½-year prison term in North Carolina (which is even more lame than Al Capone getting prison time for tax evasion).

BURGE IS NOW far, far away from our streets of Southside Chicago. But not far enough!

Because some people are still deluded enough to think he’s the victim – a dutiful police officer protecting us from the scum of our society. Nonsense!

Burge brought his own fate upon himself by giving in to the aura of violence that he was supposed to be protecting the people from.

And in doing so, he gave many people whose behavior was appalling a legal leg upon which to stand as they will continue to have their lawsuits seeking damages for the aspersions he “put” onto their “moral character” (or lack thereof).

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Fighting a noble fight, but will she win?

There were many people who were offended when the board that oversees retirement and pensions for the Chicago Police Department ruled that Jon Burge was entitled to keep collecting benefits for his 20-plus years of service as a Chicago police officer – even though he will be reporting to prison next month to begin serving a 4 ½-year sentence.

MADIGAN: Restoring police respect?



One of those people appears to be Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who on Monday had her office file a lawsuit against Burge and the Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago.

THE STATE OF Illinois is taking the position that the pension board blew it, and should have cut off Burge’s retirement benefits from the point in time that he was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to the  prison term – which was last month.

That pension board took the view that since Burge’s perjury took place during a 2003 federal lawsuit and he has not been a police officer since 1993 (which is when all the allegations of torture and abuse caught up with him and the Police Department found it easier to fire him rather than try defending him), his illegal acts were not those of a cop.

He may be an ex-cop gone bad, but the pension board didn’t see that as a criminal act committed by a cop; which would have required them to revoke his pension benefits.

Madigan’s crew of attorneys will try arguing that the state pension code says benefits cannot be paid to any person committed of a felony – if that felony is related to his service as a law enforcement officer.

SINCE THE LAWSUIT in which Burge committed perjury was one related to the torture and abuse allegations, and Burge’s false statements under oath were his denials that he or any officers under his command at the old Pullman Area detective bureau ever did anything improper, it can most definitely be argued that his criminal act relates to his professional performance as a police officer.

Now it is obvious that the spirit of the law would indicate that Madigan’s staff is taking a stance that truly is a no-brainer. She ought to win, big-time!

But it is not the spirit of the law that matters. It is the letter of the law. It’s not like the pension board’s ruling is out-of-whack with the letter of the law, which would say he was no longer a cop when his improper act occurred.

Which also means we keep coming back to the fact that Burge can never be prosecuted for the abuse and torture itself because the statute of limitations (these acts occurred in the late 1970s and into the 1980s) is long-passed.

THE BLAME CAN be placed on many individuals. There are those who claim Richard M. Daley, who once was our state’s attorney, should somehow have been more vigilant and nipped this situation in the bud.

Not like any of his predecessors were any better at rooting out this problem – which was easy to ignore because too many people were willing to believe that the people who were abused were nothing more than criminals.

Of course they’re lying about what police did to them. Even if they’re telling the truth, they probably deserved it.

Which is a sick and twisted attitude for people to have had back then. Or even today, because there are those who are convinced that any punitive action against Burge disrespects law enforcement.

THIS IS WHY I hope some court can be found to uphold the view of the Illinois attorney general’s office in this case. I believe it is the people who would accept such violent behavior who are the ones who lower our law enforcement to a level where it is not worthy of our respect.

Perhaps Lisa Madigan can help restore respect for the police with such a lawsuit.

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No matter how much some may want to believe, The Law is open to interpretation

It is borderline ridiculous whenever people use the “rule of law” phrase to defend some abhorrent action, claiming that The Law is absolute in what it says and we, the people, have no business questioning it.

The reality is that law is very much open to interpretation – as evidenced by all the hoopla this week surrounding Rahm Emanuel and whether or not he is sufficiently a Chicago resident, as required by The Law, to run for mayor.

WELL, IT SEEMS The Law has its own contradictions and it depends on how a judge wants to interpret it to the specifics of a certain case. In Emanuel's case, an appeals court panel and the Illinois Supreme Court took the exact same legal briefs written by both sides to argue the case and came up with radically different interpretations about how The Law impacted Emanuel’s circumstances. Which is why "Rahm Lives!," and some in Chicago now shudder in disgust at the thought.

No matter how much election law specialist Burt Odelson likes to spin the situation to claim that Emanuel’s situation is a clear-cut case of NOT having lived in Chicago long enough to run for mayor, there is always room for interpretation.

That latter statement became all the more apparent on Thursday when a Chicago Police Department panel that oversees pensions for retired officers decided that retired Commander Jon Burge was entitled to keep his pension – which pays him just over $3,000 per month (before taxes) for his two decades of service to the people of Chicago.

This ruling came nearly one week after Burge was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison on federal criminal charges that relate to that very service. Burge was the commander of the violent crimes unit for the Far South Side.

BURGE’S BEHAVIOR TOWARD people in his unit’s custody became so notorious that it was one factor  in the restructuring of the Chicago Police districts that saw the old Pullman Area be renamed the Calumet Area (as though erasing the “Pullman” name could erase Burge’s deeds).

So Burge is a retired cop on his way to prison.

Yet in the eyes of half of the police department’s pension board, he’s not a corrupt cop. They voted 4-4 when they met Tuesday on whether Burge could keep his pension. It would have required a 5-3 vote, at least, to deprive him of the retirement benefits.

The people on the pension board took the logic that Burge was convicted of perjury for his testimony during a 2003 civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court, not for his actual behavior while serving as a police officer.

THEY ALSO NOTE that since he was removed from the police department in 1993, he wasn’t a police officer when he committed the act of perjury for which he is now doing prison time.

All of that is 100 percent true. So the interpretation of those four individuals may well have some basis in the law.

Yet people who view issues from a more honest perspective (instead of trying to find the loophole that allows them to run roughshod over others) can’t help but think that something is seriously out of whack here.

That lawsuit for which Burge provided false testimony WAS directly related to the behavior of he and his counterparts in the Pullman Area back in the early 1980s. Burge claimed in his testimony he did nothing illegal, which federal prosecutors said was false.

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE Joan Lefkow, the federal judge who last week sent Burge to prison (he has until mid-March to report), said while sentencing him that she did not believe his denials under oath that he knew nothing of torture tactics being used by police under his command. But by the “harsh” standard of the “rule of law,” none of that matters.

One might argue that prosecutors should just go after Burge for the torture. The problem is that option is not possible.

Because city officials went through so much denial in the 1990s that Burge, or any other Chicago police officer, would use torture tactics, there has now been too much time that has passed between the criminal acts that took place down on 111^th Street and now.

The Statute of Limitations has literally passed. Burge can never be prosecuted for the actual improper acts.

IT MEANS WE have a retired cop going to prison, yet technically he’s not a corrupt cop. I suppose anyone who implies that Burge, who is 63, is now being sent away as punishment for torture tactic use is in danger of committing libel.

But the fact that Burge has a perjury conviction means we can think of him as a convicted liar. But even though his “lies” were about his police conduct, it doesn’t affect that police conduct itself.

The end result is that Burge, if he survives his time in a federal correctional center, could wind up with some cash to live on – even though I would expect his legal bills have eaten up much of what financial resources he has had.

People who are going to scream about the “rule of law” will probably applaud this outcome. I can’t help but think some sort of change is needed, or else the phrase “rule of law” is going to start taking on the taint that “State’s Rights” took for an older generation that saw it as a legal dodge to justify segregation and other abhorrent policies.

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