Chicago to Pay $32
Million Settlement in Police Misconduct Claims
The
Chicago City Council today unanimously approved payments of $32 million to pay
two claims of police misconduct.
A
mentally ill woman, Christina Eilman, will get $22.5 million.
Christina
Eilman now suffers severe brain damage after police ignored pleas for help from
her out-of-town family and turned the mentally ill woman lose in one of
Chicago's most crime-ridden neighborhoods. She was raped and either fell or was
pushed out of a seventh floor window.
Alton
Logan will get $10.2 million for the 26 years he spent in prison for a crime he
didn't commit. did not commit.]
Since 1998:
Cases
relating to police misconduct under [now-convicted former Area 2 Commander Jon]
Burge alone have cost the city $63 million. In the last decade, the city spent
$82.5 million defending officers against misconduct charges.
More
cases are pending:
With
having so many Burge cases at our throats, it makes it very difficult to even
predict a regular number," Austin said.
Between
the years of 1972 and 1991, approximately 135 African-American men and women
were arrested and tortured at the hands of former Chicago Police Commander Jon
Burge and officers under his command at Area 2 police headquarters. Some of
these victims were as young as thirteen years old. Various court cases have
established that the methods of torture used in the interrogation of suspects
included electric shock to the ears and genitalia, mock executions,
suffocation, and burning. While Jon Burge was ultimately fired by the Chicago
Police Department, not a single perpetrator of the tortures has ever been
criminally prosecuted.