Chicago pays $5.5M in reparations to 57 Burge torture victims

[Eugene]

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Cash-strapped Chicago doled out $5.5 million in reparations on Monday to 57 victims of the Jon Burge police torture era after a painstaking claims process that will do nothing to heal the wounds of more recent police shootings.

When the City Council agreed last spring to make Chicago the nation’s first major city to pay reparations, there were high hopes that the $100,000 checks to individual torture victims would restore public trust between citizens and police in the African-American community so undermined by the convicted former Area 2 commander and his cohorts.


But damage done by the police dashcam video that showed white police Officer Jason Van Dyke pumping 16 shots into the body of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was black, has added a new and equally ugly chapter in the history of the Chicago Police Department.

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The checks are in the mail 44 years after the “first known instance” of torture by Burge and his midnight crew.

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Read more: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/1225907/chicago-pays-5-5-million-reparations-57-burge-torture-victims

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WRITTEN BY FRAN SPIELMAN POSTED: 01/04/2016, 09:17PM

[Downwinder]

1. Has the largess of the public purse been effective

anywhere in reducing abusive behavior of police?

[cstanleytech]

2. Only 5.5? Should have been more like 57 million. nt

[Ace Rothstein]

3. Yeah, that isn't too much money considering the number of victims.

[Chicago1980]

5. No, not of my tax dollars.

Perhaps they can revoke the pensions of these bad cops, but overtime there's a payout, we the citizens suffer financially.

[Solly Mack]

4. "there were high hopes that the... checks to individual torture victims would restore public trust"

Seriously?

Snort.

Have they considered actual justice?