From the Chicago Tribune:
Anthony Holmes, 63, said that on May 29, 1973, Burge and other officers burst into the South Side home, arrested him at gunpoint and took him to the old Area 2 headquarters. There, in an interview room, he initially denied any involvement in the murder.
It was then that Burge entered the room with a mysterious device, Holmes said.
"He took the box and plugged it into the wall," said Holmes, an imposing figure with his hair pulled into a tiny bun and tattoos dotting his arms. "He put one wire on my ankle (shackles) and I assume he put the other one on my handcuffs... He said, 'N-----, you're going to tell me what I want to know."
[snip]
"You expect to get beat up by the police, but you don't expect to get shocked, electrocuted, bags put over your head, stuff like that," Holmes said. "I still feel the effects. I feel withdrawn, helpless."
Burge is thought to have tortured hundreds of prisoners for confessions. Thought by who? US Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald (video over the fold).
Burge doesn't face torture charges because the statute of limitations ran out years ago, long before the sentences expire of some of the men still in prison because of those forced confessions.
Burge is facing trial--finally--on two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury, those being the only charges that can be applied after so much time.
He had been fired in 1993 from the Chicago PD for mistreatment of a suspect (no charges pressed). In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan released four condemned men he said Burge had extracted confessions from using torture (still no charges pressed).
From AP:
The allegations of torture and coerced confessions eventually led to a still-standing moratorium on Illinois’ death penalty and the emptying of death row — moves credited with re-igniting the global fight against capital punishment. But they also earned Chicago a reputation as a haven for rogue cops, a place where police could abuse suspects without notice or punishment.
[snip]
The Republican governor later cleared all of death row, saying the torture of innocent men at the hands of Chicago police had tainted the state’s entire death penalty system.
"How many more cases of wrongful convictions have to occur before we can all agree that the system is broken?" Ryan said at the time.
I remember that story. I somehow missed that the cause of it was never brought to justice. He's old now, has undergone treatment for prostate cancer. But I'd really like the former Chicago Police lieutenant whose personal boat was named "Vigilante" to spend some time behind bars before he dies. Not so much for his sake--he's just a small-souled monster who isn't likely to see the error of his ways. For our sake and the sake of our children, to show we do care when the law is perverted by its supposed guardians.