On this day, July 19, in 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked and shocked tortured scores of suspects in the 1970s and ’80s to try to extract confessions from them.
The four-year investigation into the torture allegations focused on former Cmdr. Jon Burge, whose so-called “Midnight Crew” was found to have suffocated suspects with plastic bags, shocked them with electrical devices and held a loaded gun to their heads.
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Several of the suspects were convicted of murder and sentenced to life, but were cleared decades years later by DNA tests.
Federal prosecutors said the statue of limitations had passed on the torture allegations and charged Burge with perjury and obstruction of justice. Burge was convicted in 2010 at age 63. He was sentenced to 4 and 1/2 years in prison.
— Scott McCabe
