Jon Burge: Chicago Police Torture, Federal Conviction, and Reparations

Jon Burge was a Chicago Police commander who, with detectives under his command, tortured more than 100 suspects, nearly all of them Black men, at Area 2 and Area 3 headquarters on the city’s South Side between 1972 and 1991. The Chicago police torture carried out under Jon Burge produced coerced confessions, wrongful convictions, and death sentences; it cost the city more than $130 million in settlements and judgments; and it led to a federal perjury conviction against Burge, a landmark reparations ordinance, and decades of unresolved questions about who else knew and did nothing.¹²

What Happened at Area 2 and Area 3

Burge joined the Chicago Police Department around 1970 and rose to command the Violent Crimes units at Area 2 and later Area 3. The detectives who carried out abuse under his supervision were known informally as the “Midnight Crew.”¹³

Estimates of the total number of victims range from over 100 to as many as 120.⁴ A 1991 report by the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards, known as the Goldston Report, called the abuse “systemic,” “methodical,” and “planned.”¹ Burge was fired in 1993. No other officer was terminated or disciplined for participation in the torture, and many were promoted and retired with full pensions.⁵

How the Torture Came to Light: The Andrew Wilson Case

Public awareness of Burge’s methods began with Andrew Wilson. On February 9, 1982, Chicago police officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien were shot and killed. Wilson was arrested five days later and taken to Area 2, where he alleged that Burge and other detectives handcuffed him to a hot radiator, used an electric shock device on his ears, lip, genitals, and fingers, beat him, burned him with a cigarette, and suffocated him with a plastic garbage bag.⁵

Dr. John Raba, head of the Cook County Jail medical unit, examined Wilson upon his arrival at the jail and found injuries consistent with those claims, including radiator burns on his chest, thigh, and cheek. Raba formally requested an investigation from CPD Superintendent Richard Brzeczek. Brzeczek forwarded the request to Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley but said he would not investigate without direction from the state’s attorney’s office. Daley never ordered an inquiry. His office fought to keep Wilson’s confession admissible at trial, succeeded, and used it to convict Wilson and obtain a death sentence.⁵ Attorneys who later litigated these cases have said the failure to act on Wilson allowed the torture of at least 70 additional Black men over the following two decades.⁶

Daley, who later became mayor of Chicago, said in 2006 that he “shared responsibility” for not preventing the torture but maintained he had no knowledge of it at the time and had done nothing wrong.⁷⁶⁸

Wrongful Convictions and the Death Row 10

Coerced confessions produced a string of wrongful convictions, many carrying sentences of death or life in prison. Ten torture survivors on Illinois death row organized as the “Death Row 10” to fight their convictions collectively.⁵

On January 11, 2003, two days before leaving office, Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 prisoners on Illinois death row to life in prison or less. He pardoned four of the Death Row 10 on the basis of innocence: Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange, and Stanley Howard. Ryan cited confessions “beaten out of” suspects by Burge’s detectives as a key reason.⁹¹⁰

Other survivors spent years or decades in prison before their cases were resolved. Ronald Kitchen was convicted of five murders on a coerced confession, sentenced to death, and imprisoned for 21 years before being exonerated. Michael Tillman was exonerated in 2010 after more than 23 years in prison. Darrell Cannon was released in 2007 after attorneys forced a new hearing on his motion to suppress. Marcus Wiggins was just 13 years old when he was electric-shocked by detectives; he received a settlement in the early 1990s.¹¹

The Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission, created in 2009, began accepting claims in 2011 to review Burge-era cases. By 2014, it had identified 16 cases with credible evidence of torture warranting judicial review, with 71 more under active review.¹² As of 2016, advocacy groups reported that at least 20 people remained incarcerated based on confessions coerced through Burge-era torture.⁴

Why Burge Was Never Charged With Torture

The statute of limitations was the barrier. In 2002, the presiding judge of the Cook County Circuit Court Criminal Division appointed former assistant state’s attorneys Edward Egan and Robert Boyle as special prosecutors. Their four-year, $7 million investigation concluded that Burge and detectives under his command had committed aggravated battery and armed violence, but the special prosecutors declined to pursue charges, stating that the statute of limitations had expired for the physical acts as well as for perjury and obstruction of justice tied to earlier proceedings.⁵

The 2010 Federal Conviction

Federal prosecutors found a different path. In 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois indicted Burge for perjury and obstruction of justice based on false answers he gave under oath in a 2003 civil deposition, when he denied participating in or having knowledge of the torture of suspects at Area 2.¹³

On June 28, 2010, after a five-week trial, a federal jury convicted Burge on two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury. Torture survivors Anthony Holmes, Melvin Jones, Shadeed Mu’min, and Gregory Banks testified against him.¹⁴⁵ U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow sentenced Burge on January 21, 2011, to 54 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, an upward departure from the recommended guidelines. At the hearing, she said that “if others, such as the United States attorney and the state’s attorney, had given heed long ago, so much pain could have been avoided.”¹³¹

Burge reported to the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina in March 2011. He was transferred to a Florida halfway house on October 2, 2014, and formally released from custody on February 13, 2015.¹⁵¹⁶

Burge Kept His Police Pension

Even after his conviction, Burge continued to collect his Chicago police pension. In January 2011, the Chicago Police Pension Fund Board voted 4-4 on whether to strip his benefits. Because the vote was a tie, the pension stood, and Burge continued to receive roughly $3,000 to $3,700 per month.¹⁷¹⁸ The four board members who voted to maintain the pension, all current or former police officers, argued that his perjury and obstruction convictions were not directly connected to his job duties because he had already been fired when the offenses occurred.¹⁹

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan tried to challenge the board’s decision. In July 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that she lacked the legal authority to do so, holding that the power to terminate a pension rested exclusively with the pension board.¹⁷ Burge collected his pension until his death.

The 2015 Reparations Ordinance

On May 6, 2015, the Chicago City Council unanimously passed the Reparations for Burge Torture Victims Ordinance, making Chicago the first city in the United States to provide reparations for racially motivated police violence.⁴ The ordinance was the product of a campaign by a coalition of more than 45 organizations, including the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials and the People’s Law Office.²⁰

The ordinance provided:

A $5.5 million fund offering up to $100,000 per eligible survivor; 57 survivors ultimately received payments.²¹
A formal apology from the mayor and City Council.²¹
Free tuition at Chicago’s City Colleges for survivors and their family members, including grandchildren.²¹
Counseling services for survivors and families at a dedicated South Side facility.²²
A mandatory Chicago Public Schools curriculum on the Burge torture cases for 8th- and 10th-grade students.²¹
A permanent public memorial to the survivors.²²
Job placement and reentry services for survivors.²¹

The “Reparations Won” curriculum was officially adopted by Chicago Public Schools in 2017. By spring 2018, over 90 percent of district-run schools reported they had taught it, though the data was self-reported.²³ The Chicago Torture Justice Center, established as a direct result of the ordinance, provides clinical healing services, reentry support, and case management, and remains the only center in the United States dedicated to survivors of domestic torture.²⁴

What It Cost Chicago

By April 2015, before the reparations fund was added, the city had already spent over $80 million on settlements and legal fees connected to the Burge cases.²⁵ As of January 2022, the total had reached $130 million in lawsuit settlements and judgments, a figure that includes the $5.5 million reparations fund.²

Burge’s Death

Burge died on September 19, 2018, at age 70, at his retirement home in Apollo Beach, Florida, south of Tampa. He had been treated for cancer, though a formal cause of death was not released.²⁶²⁷ He was never charged with the acts of torture themselves, and he collected his police pension until the day he died.²⁰ The Chicago Police Torture Archive, a digital collection of more than 100,000 documents launched by the Invisible Institute in 2021, preserves the legal record and continues to serve attorneys, organizers, and survivors still seeking to overturn convictions tainted by coerced confessions.²⁸

1
Chicago Police Torture Archive. Timeline
2
WTTW News. Cost of Burge-Era Torture Grows as Chicago City Council Agrees to Pay 2 Wrongfully Convicted Men
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Burge Indictment
4
Chicago Torture Justice. History
5
Chicago Police Torture Archive. Legal History
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People’s Law Office. Mayor Daley Role in Chicago Police Torture Case
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The New York Times. Chicago Mayor Says He Shares Responsibility in Torture Cases
8
Chicago Tribune. Daley Burge Deposition Public
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The New York Times. George H. Ryan
10
Death Penalty Information Center. Illinois
11
People’s Law Office. Chicago Police Torture
12
Amnesty International USA. Bringing Human Rights Home: Torture
13
FBI. Burge Sentencing Press Release
14
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Chicago Police Commander Convicted of Perjury, Obstruction of Justice Related to Torture
15
ABC7 Chicago. Ex-Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge Released From Custody
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Sun Sentinel. Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge Released From Home Confinement
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CBS News Chicago. Supreme Court Rules Burge Can Keep His Pension
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ABC13. Jon Burge Pension Vote
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Sun Sentinel. Despite Felony Conviction, Burge Keeps His Pension
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Chicago Police Torture Archive. About
21
CTJM Foundation. Reparations Legislation
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Amnesty International USA. Chicago City Council Passes Landmark Police Torture Reparations Ordinance
23
Chalkbeat Chicago. Chicago Public Schools Reparations Won Curriculum
24
MacArthur Foundation. Chicago Torture Justice Center
25
ABC7 Chicago. City Proposes $5.5M Fund for Burge Police Torture Victims
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The New York Times. Jon Burge Dead
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ABC7 Chicago. Jon Burge, Disgraced Former CPD Commander, Dead at 70
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Block Club Chicago. Chicago Police Torture Archive Documents Decades of Abuse From Jon Burge and His Midnight Crew