Drama in Dirksen

Most of the attention is being paid to the trial of Rod Blagojevich however the Dirksen Federal Building in Downtown Chicago is full of drama these days. While Blago is going on, so too is the trial of former Chicago police commander Jon Burge. Burge is alleged to have tortured, or ordered the torture, of 200 plus victims from 1972-1992. In 2001, he denied these charges and he's now standing trial for perjury in relation to the matter. Today, a former police officer Michael McDermott was sceduled to testify for the prosecution. The belief was that McDermott was going to detail a beating that Burge put on a suspect. The courtroom was in for a surprise.

Former Chicago Police detective Michael McDermott's face reddened today as he repeatedly pushed back against federal prosecutors who ordered him to testify against his former boss, retired Cmdr. Jon Burge.

McDermott had told a grand jury that he witnessed Burge point a gun at robbery suspect Shadeed Mu'min's head in October 1985, and also saw Burge cover Mu'min's head with a plastic bag.

Under questioning from prosecutors today, McDermott said he was standing outside then-lieutenant Burge's office when he saw Burge and Mu'min briefly scuffle inside the small room.

"It was a brief struggle, 20 seconds or less," McDermott said. "I saw at one point Lt. Burge had something in his hands and he went across the face of the bad guy."

McDermott went on to say that Burge was one of the best police officers he'd ever worked for and that his prior Grand Jury testimony was taken out of context. The drama also played out in the Burge trial on Friday. A former gang member, Greg Banks, testified that his confession was tortured and here's how his cross examination played out.

Banks, who has been convicted of burglary, acknowledged he was a member of the Black Gangster Disciple street gang for 20 years and had been addicted to heroin for years until four years ago.

But the two sparred heatedly over the court-reported confession Banks gave after his arrest. As Gamboney pressed him about his statement, Banks alternately said he didn't remember or that the statement was a lie.

"If this is what happened, my case would have never gotten overturned and you know that," Banks shouted over Gamboney as he waved a copy of his statement in front of the jury. "I'm not going to let you sit here and make them believe it's true because you know it's not true. ... This is not true, so I'm not going to look at it."

"I know, it's all a pack of lies -- you were framed," said Gamboney, his voice thick with sarcasm.

There are still 22 people in prisons in Illinois identified to have had their confessions coerced by Jon Burge or a member of Burge's posse. Joan Lefkow, no stranger to tragedy herself, is the trial judge for this trial.

Jon Burge Up on Trial

The notorious former Police Commander in Chicago, Jon Burge, who is linked to roughly 200 false confessions that were gotten through the use of torture.

One of the city's most persistent and troubling scandals reaches federal court today when jury selection begins in the trial of Jon Burge, the former Chicago police detective accused of overseeing the torture of suspects.

For nearly two decades, Burge and his detectives allegedly sent dozens of men to prison on the basis of coerced confessions, deepening bitterness between police and minorities and helping inspire former Gov. George Ryan to reject capital punishment and empty the state's death row.

But Burge, now 62, living on a police pension and reportedly in poor health, will not be tried for any act of torture. While federal prosecutors say they will prove that he and his detectives abused suspects, the statute of limitations expired long ago.

Burge isn't merely living in Florida but he's doing it on the city's pension. Despite being fired in 1993, Burge continues to receive his pension. Furthermore, while he faces criminal charges, he isn't charged directly with anything related to the torture. That's because the torture was finally brought to light just after, conveniently enough, the statute of limitations ran out. These charges relate to Burge's alleged false statements under oath about this abuse.

This entire case is wrapped up in Chicago's culture of corruption. Richard M. Daley was Cook County State's Attorney from 1981-1989. It was his prosecutors that systematically took confessions from people that claimed to have been tortured. Besides his name, Daley ran for mayor under his record of convictions which we now know was heavily inflated by systematic torture. Furthermore, it was Mayor Harold Washington that in the early 1980's promoted Burge to commander even as allegations were prevalent.

I've been speaking with one of Burge's victims, Mark Clements. He was charged with four counts of murder stemming from a fire to a two flat in the Southeast side of Chicago in 1981. Clements says he was beaten in the chest for the better part of twenty minutes by a Chicago Police officer named John McCann. McCann then proceeded to scream racial epithets at Clements and then squeezed his genitals until Clements finally agreed to confess. Clements then proceeded to tell Cook County Prosecutor Kevin Moore that he had been tortured when Moore came in to take his confession. Clements was then tortured again by McCann when McCann found out that Clements dared to accuse him of torture. Clements was 16 at the time of his arrest and was given four life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Clements was only released from prison in August of 2009, even though his case was the subject of media scrutiny throughout his incarceration. Clements credits Bernadine Dohrn, wife of former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, with providing the legal help that ultimately got him released. One reason was that Cook County refused to test evidence for DNA when those tests became available. For most of his incarceration, Clements was represented by legal aid which didn't have the resources to do it himself. It wasn't until Dohrn connected Clements to powerhouse law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which spent several million dollars of its own resources that enough evidence was presented to allow his release.

Why I Have Hope for Chicago, Cook County, and Springfield in Light of the Blagojevich Scandal

I have in the last year plus of blogging done many reports on a lot of corruption. There is one common thread in all habitual corruption. That is that the media is either incompetent or corrupt or both. In covering the scandal surrounding Grady and Emory I saw an utter lack of ability and or willingness by the local media like the AJC and the national media like the New York Times to connect the dots on all of the corruption that continues to go on there. In the latest reincarnation of corruption at Emory University, once again the media can't seem to figure out how to connect the dots to all the other corruption that surrounds that University. In covering the corruption of Dr. Mark Blotcky in Dallas, there was almost no coverage of his reign of terror besides what I wrote. The corruption at the Texas Medical Board gets scant coverage at any of the Texas area media outlets.

The same is true of the corruption in Chicago, Cook County, and Springfield. That our state is one of the most corrupt in the nation speaks for itself in damning the media here. Let's take the case of Jon Burge for instance. This was a police commander that for about twenty years lead a reign of terror in which hundreds of suspects had confessions tortured out of them. In fact, it got so bad that George Ryan had to put a moratorium on the death penalty. That's because far too many folks on death row got there because of tortured confessions. In fact, it is a matter of public record that prosecutors from the Cook County State's Attorney's office took confessions routinely from suspects they knew were just tortured. Yet, the newspaper that did the most coverage on this story was not either the Tribune or the Sun Times, but the Chicago Reader, the local artsy newspaper with one tenth the circulation of either the Tribune or the Sun Times.

For far too long, corrupt business as usual has gone on in Chicago and the media has turned a blind eye. For instance, we see all of this flurry of activity from the U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Yet, the Cook County State's Attorney's office has in the last twenty years convicted exactly one politician of corruption charges. Is that something you would hear in the local media? Of course not. In fact, our current mayor was previously the Cook County State's Attorney and he was in charge while Burge was committing much of his torture, and he did nothing. Is that something you would ever read in either the Tribune or the Sun Times, very unlikely?

In 2006, John Stroger, then President of Cook County, suddenly slipped into a coma. It was unclear if he would survive let alone run for another term. In the worst kind of back room deal, his son, Todd, usurped the office and annoited himself the candidate of the Democratic Party in the next election. Prior to this, Todd was a city councilman in Chicago. Since then, Stroger has increased the County's sales tax to the highest levels in the country, cut funding to Cook County Hospital (also called John Stroger Hospital), and as this local CBS affiliate report shows put multiple political allies and friends on the County's payroll with cushy six figure jobs. Yet, outside of the report I linked, you will find scant coverage of Stroger's consistent and uncontrolled corruption.

Then, there is mayor Richard M. Daley. He is a walking talking pile of corruption. Every once in a while the media will report on a scandal like the hired truck scandal, but in reality, Daley's obscene corruption is really nothing more than an open secret that the media only attempts pay lip service to when it goes overboard, like the hired truck scandal. That his entire government is run as nothing more than a patronage, political machine full of favors, bribes, and back room deals is something that in Chicago only John Kass seems willing to address with any seriousness.

So, why am I so hopeful that this scandal will lead to real reform? There are several reasons. First, the brazenness and hubris that Blagojevich exhibited has created a visceral reaction not only in Illinois but in the nation. This is no longer a local or state story, but a national story. I believe that one of the reasons that the two newspapers cover up the corruption is access. They want to be able to speak to the mayor, the Cook County President and the governor. Now, the national media has descended upon Illinois. Some investigative journalist from Portland, Oregon isn't going to be concerned if he burns bridges with the Mayor's office in Chicago. As such, they are a lot less likely to be afraid to report the whole truth than most of the corrupted Chicago media establishment.

Second, Patrick Fitzgerald is an uncorruptable federal prosecutor that clearly has a visceraly hate for corruption himself. He will take these investigations wherever they lead and spare no one that is guilty. Now, with the visceral reaction of the nation to this corruption, he has the mandate of the entire nation to follow through on each and every lead. Unlike the standard operating procedure of the Chicago political establishment, this investigation won't be swept under the rug. Fitzgerald will follow through until he catches each and every person involved. The only potential road block is President Obama himself. If he were to fire Fitzgerald, even as part of a so called house cleaning, it would be his way of continuing the so called Chicago Way. If that happened, then this investigation would stop in its tracks. Of course, if President Obama were to do this, it would be at the expense of his Presidency. This brazen attempt to subvert an investigation into many of his political allies would not go unnoticed now that the entire nation's media has descended upon Fitzgerald, Chicago, and the state.

Third, this has the this has the to really damage the President Elect, but he also has the chance to turn this into a huge victory. If you read any Obama apologist they will defend him by proclaiming that this is guilt by association. The problem is that Obama rose through the ranks of the very guilty political machine that brought us this scandal. Obama is guilty by association because he didn't swear off the likes of Daley, Blagojevich, and Stroger, but rather he made them ALL his political allies. He's guilty by association because all his associations are guilty. Yet, he has a chance to turn all of this in his favor. He now has the bully pulpit and the resources, and he can demand that every investigation into every bit of Illinois corruption will reach its conclusion while he is President. If he does this, he will be viewed as the reformer he claims to be. It remains to be seen if Obama will show the kind of political courage necessary to do this, but if he is who he claims to be, corruption in Illinois will be taken on head on. If he does it, he will also lead the charge to break the grip of corruption that has had a hold on Chicago, Cook County and Springfield for as long as the governments here have been around.

Examing the Merits of George Ryan's Potential Commutation

As we end the term of President George W. Bush, one of the last things that this President will do is take a look many individuals currently serving time to see if any deserve to have their sentences commuted.

To put some context into why George Ryan is in prison we must start at the beginning of the story. This story starts in the state of Wisconsin in 1993. The Willis family was driving down a Wisconsin highway when their car was hit by the truck of Ricardo Guzman. Guzman, an illegal alien, had attained his CDL (the license to drive a truck) illegally in Illinois by paying off an employee of the Secretary of State's office. Willis, and his five siblings, burnt to death and died on that Wisconsin Highway.

The investigation into the death of the six Willis siblings uncovered that the Secretary of State's office, then run by George Ryan (who was Secretary of State of Illinois from 1991-1999), had perpetrated bribes to thousands to illegally obtain CDL licenses in exchange for bribes. The investigation even found that vanity plates for vehicles for sizeable campaign donations. It was a way to mark territory of political influence.

Even though it was clear that at best Ryan was running a corrupt Secretary of State's office, he was eventually, in 1999, rewarded with the top honor in the state and George Ryan became the state's 39th Governor.

In 2002, the scandals that grew out of this tragic death began to engulf the Ryan administration. It caused George Ryan not to seek re election and it turned a purple stated decidedly blue where it stands now. Yet, the problems for George Ryan were only beginning. By this point, a new outside Federal Prosecutor was brought in to serve for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. Illinois had a history of obscene corruption and that history was aided by those in law enforcement looking the other way. (see the case of Jon Burge as a great example) Fitzgerald was having none of it. By 2003, he had opened up a full investigation into bribes for licenses and other corruption that engulfed the Ryan administration.

The names involved were consummate power players within the State Government of Illinois. The State of Illinois has long been run as a shadow government with power players calling the shots behind the scenes. This case was no different. Names like Scott Fawell, Richard Juliano, and Lawrence Warner emerged as primary players in the corruption. These were names only known to political heavyweights in Springfield, however they carried a lot of influence, and ultimately they got into bed with George Ryan for their own benefit.

Ultimately, Ryan was convicted of 22 charges related to corruption. The charges included racketeering, bribery, and obstruction of justice. Here is how Patrick Fitzgerald described the severity of the charges.

Mr. Ryan steered contracts worth millions of dollars to friends and took payments and vacations in return. When he was a sitting governor, he lied to the F.B.I. about this conduct and then he went out and did it again." He charged that one of the most egregious aspects of the corruption was Ryan's action after learning that bribes were being paid for licenses. Instead of ending the practice he tried to end the investigation that had uncovered it, Fitzgerald said, calling the moment "a low-water mark for public service."

To truly understand the despicable nature of the things Ryan was convicted of, you must imagine six poor children burning to death. Their death was tragic and senseless, but it was also unnecessary. It originated from the very corruption that Ryan was an active participant. It's the very corruption that Fitzgerald points out Ryan attempted to sweep under the rug. Had it not been for Chicago's 21st century Elliot Ness, Patrick Fitzgerald, we may never have known just how widespread the corruption was and how deep Ryan was in it. Those six children need not be dead but they are and they are dead in no small part to the very corruption that George Ryan practiced on a daily basis while Governor. He didn't merely betray the public's trust, but he killed it.

Now, some very powerful forces are attempting to commute his sentence after Ryan has served only about a year and a half. They are forces like Dick Durbin, current U.S. Senator from Illinois, and Jim Thompson, former Governor of Illinois (and Ryan's current lawyer). To allow Ryan's sentence to be commuted is to send the message that in our justice system there are two forms, one for the average joe and one for the powerful. For what George Ryan did, he should never see the light of day, only he will whether his sentence is commuted or not. To allow George Ryan to leave prison after only a year and a half is to spit in the memory of six children who's death was as gruesome as it was tragic. For the crimes that George Ryan was convicted he deserves to spend each and every day of his sentence in prison. To let him out even a day early is to dismiss the death of six innoncent children and the corruption that lead to it.

Some Context on Jon Burge, the Chicago Media, and Election 2008

In yesterday's election for Cook County State's Attorney, Anita Alvarez trounced Tony Peraica. The only time that the race became a story in the press in the area was a bruhaha over an advertisement created by Tony Peraica. Tony Peraica used an advertisement that invoked the U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has asked Republican Cook County state's attorney candidate Tony Peraica to stop passing out a campaign flier that looks to Fitzgerald like Peraica is claiming his endorsement.

The flier shows side-by-side photos of Fitzgerald and Peraica and says, "U.S. Attorney's Office Needs Help Fighting Corruption in Cook County."

Fitzgerald said in his letter he had never even met Peraica. "The flier creates the misleading assumption that I have endorsed your candidacy. . . . That is by no means the case. I have never endorsed any candidate in any race for anything (much less someone I do not believe I have yet had occasion to meet.)"

Peraica's advertisement made the claim that if he (Tony Peraica) were elected, then Peraica would help Fitzgerald in rooting out corruption in Cook County. Alvarez cried foul because the advertisement was construed as an endorsement of Peraica by Fitzgerald, which Fitzgerald never did. While the advertisement was a bit misleading, the entire issue was rather trivial. Yet, this is the only thing that the media in the Cook County area focused on regarding the race.

At the same time, only weeks before the election Jon Burge was indicted by the same U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Burge is a former police commander in Chicago that committed systematic torture for almost twenty years before finally being removed in the early 1990's.

The Burge story should have been explored long before the campaign, but it should have especially been explored following the indictment. The Cook County State's Attorney's office didn't merely look the other way while this torture went on. In fact, they were often willing participants. It was in fact often Cook County State's Attorneys prosecutors that often took statements of suspects after being beaten for hours, electricuted, and other torture. The Cook County State's Attorney's office knew what happened and they participated for years actively in the torture.

Anita Alvarez is a twenty plus year veteran of the Cook County State's Attorney's office. Some of those years were spent in the office while Burge and his crew were committing systematic torture. Both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times endorsed Alvarez. Both cited her "experience" as a main reason for their endorsement. In fact, the Cook County State's Attorney's race was a mirror of the Presidential campaign, with Peraica, the Republican, as the agent of change, and Alvarez, the Democrat, the agent of experience. As much as the folks at both the Sun Times and Tribune ate up Obama's message of change, they just as quickly dismissed the exact same message from Peraica.

The Cook County government is in need of far more significant reform than the govenrment in D.C., and that is coming from someone who knows full well how broken D.C. is. The Burge story only starts here as well. First, Burge was again indicted by the U.S. Attorney not the Cook County State's Attorney. Second, he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice not torture. That's because his acts of torture have now passed the statute of limitations. That's likely because the powers that be in places just like the Cook County State's Attorney's office protected Burge until the statute of limitations ran out.

All of this should have made the entire office toxic. Had the media given the Burge story and the overall corruption surrounding the proper coverage of a story of this magnitude, the entire Cook County State's Attorney's office would have become toxic. Had the media covered this story with the vigor that it finally deserves, Alvarez' 20 plus year connection to the office would have been as toxic as McCain's connection to Bush.

The State's Attorney's office almost never indicts a politician in the very crooked County of Cook. One of the reasons that the County is as corrupt as it is, is exactly because the Cook County State's Attorney's office does nearly nothing to be a watchdog. The other reason is because the major news organizations are just as ignorant.

Instead, the major media in the Chicagoland area focused on a silly advertisement. They made experience the important issue in the race, and as such, the apathetic voters voted in the ultimate insider to oversea one of the most corrupt political governments in the country.

Jon Burge and Chicago's Culture of Corruption

In my post on Jon Burge, I received this comment.

Good for Fitzgerald, but has anybody looked into why the US Attorney at the time did nothing? People are remembering that Daley didn't prosecute Burge when he was State's Attorney, but a police officer's torturing a confession out of a suspect is also a federal crime under 18 USC 242.

This is very little, very late, and people should understand that convicting Burge of perjury in this case will not help those who were wrongly convicted overturn their convictions. Because the law makes that virtually impossible, their only hope remains a pardon from the governor.

The observation this commentor makes is at the heart of this story. Jon Burge was both a police officer and eventually a police commander that, starting in 1972, began torturing confessions out of suspects. As a police commander, he made torture a standard operating procedure for the police under his command. He continued to do this until in 1993 he was finally removed from his position and forced into early retirement upon which he drew a police pension that continues today.

At the heart of this story is the simple questions of how and why. How does a police commander get away with systematic torture? Why did no one ever stop him?

It is both an open secret and a running joke that the politics of the city of Chicago is corrupt. After all, our fair city is NOT called the Windy City because it is windy, even though it is. It's called the Windy City because our politicians are corrupt. After all, the most apt saying to describe Chicago politics is

vote early and vote often

said famously by Richard J. Daley, who many credit with handing the White House to JFK with thousands of phantom ballots. Of course, Chicago political corruption is treated as a bit of a joke, but torture is no joking matter. In this case, it is the systemic corruption that explains the how and the why for the story of Jon Burge.

Why didn't the U.S. Attorney never prosecute Jon Burge prior? It's the same reason that Peter Fitzgerald lost his political career for naming Patrick Fitzgerald the current U.S. Attorney for the area covering Chicago. Before Patrick Fitzgerald, we could count on the U.S. Attorney here to be a political insider. That political insider had no reason to investigate or prosecute police corruption like torture. Our current mayor, Richard M. Daley, was the Cook County State's Attorney from 1981-1989 and he did absolutely nothing to investigate the corruption that lead to systematic torture. Now, Anita Alvarez, who has spent the last twenty plus years in the very Cook County State's Attorney's office that has done nothing, is the favorite to be the next Cook County State's Attorney. The corruption only begins there though. The entire hierarchy of the Chicago Police Department did absolutely nothing while all of this was going on. These weren't isolated incidents. This was systematic. Estimates have at least 200 prisoners currently in jail that got there through confessions that were a result of torture. Then, there is the Chicago area media. You'll find scant attention to this story for the nearly two decades that it went on. In fact, it was the artsy newspaper, the Chicago Reader, that lead the way in breaking this story. The establishment media in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times, didn't have much interest in systemic torture. The local news stations were also asleep while this went on.

So, it went. The entire Chicago political class either didn't care or something worse. The entire Chicago media class either didn't or worse. The systemic torture of Jon Burge got so bad that eventually George Ryan had to put a moratorium on the death penalty here because far too many of his cases were winding up on death row. So, for about twenty years Jon Burge continued his reign of terror. We'll never know just how many suspects wound up in jail as a result...several hundred or maybe even several thousand.

Even today, no one seems to care. No one is asking the tough questions. How did this happen? Who is responsible for covering it up and looking the other way? One person who is at the center is now mayor of the city. Most of the players around the torture have grown in stature and power. Some have retired or moved on. No one, though, absolutely no one, has been held to account including Jon Burge. Burge, after all, has now finally been charged but not with torture. Rather, he has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice relating to testimonly from a civil suity. Presumably he lied about torturing people. Even now, the case continues to be swept under the rug by a corrupt Chicago political class that likely would rather not have the secrets that are most certainly associated with it see the light of day. An equally corrupt Chicago media is happy to oblige the corrupt Chicago political class in keeping all these secrets.

Sometimes corruption is something to snicker at and make jokes about, but most of the time, it leads to tragedy, like when a cop conducts systematic torture of suspects and no one does anything about it. Jon Burge, and everything that surrounds his case, is what the systematic corruption that infects Chicago politics has bred, and no one, still, seems to care at all.

Dismissing Torture: Finally Unravelling the Secrets of Jon Burge

This article came out in early 2005 from the Chicago Reader. The Reader is Chicago's artsy newspaper and its circulation is exponentially smaller than either the Tribune or the Chicago Sun Times.

JON BURGE SEEMS to have begun abusing suspects not long after he became a Chicago police detective in 1972, but not until the late 80s was he cross-examined at length about his interrogation practices. Accused by convicted cop killer Andrew Wilson of torture, he testified fearlessly, presenting himself as guilty only of being a dedicated, resourceful policeman and an activist supervisor. He said he often stood at the door of interrogation rooms, listening to his detectives question suspects, and never saw any abuse.

Wilson had shot two officers dead in February 1982, and Burge worked five days straight to track him down, never going home. When Wilson was finally located, hiding in a west-side apartment, Burge was first at the door, attacking it with lock picks, tools rarely held by policemen. "I used a single-digit rake and tension bar," he explained in a 1988 deposition.

After his conviction, Wilson sued the city, saying he'd been tortured by Burge and detectives under his command. He wasn't the first former suspect to make this accusation, and scores have been uncovered since. Wilson said Burge wired him up to a black box and turned a crank that generated an electric shock. This technique bore a striking resemblance to what American troops in Vietnam called "the Bell telephone hour"--shocking prisoners by means of a hand-cranked army field phone. In defending himself against Wilson's suit he said he'd never seen a black box, and though he'd served as a military policeman in the Mekong delta in 1968 and '69 had never heard of field phone interrogations. He bristled at the suggestion that Americans in Vietnam had conducted them.

Burge's peers from the Ninth Military Police Company, however, remember such torture in considerable detail.

The article went on to detail cases of systematic torture that originated from Area 2 and 3 where Commander Jon Burge was in charge for years starting in the early 1970's. Burge was finally fired in 1993 after documented evidence of years of systematic torture under his command. Of course, upon being removed from his command he continued to draw a pension from the city.

In the last couple weeks, Burge has found his way back into the news.

Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge was arrested Tuesday morning on perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to a civil case about whether he and officers under his command tortured suspects in police custody.

Much like Al Capone, Burge has still not faced justice for the systemic torture he carried on for decades. Instead, he is facing perjury charges that stem from a civil suit related to his torture. In fact, when former Governor George Ryan halted executions, his decision came in large part from the discovery of the very torture that Burge systematically perpetrated. According to John Jackson of Operation PUSH, there are roughly 200 people still falsely imprisoned in Chicago as a result of false confessions from Burge's torture.

This case unfortunately is about a lot more than merely a rogue police officer and many people who spent time in jail for crimes they didn't commit. It starts with this ironic column by Carol Marin. The piece is entitled Torture Cases Ignored Too Long

On Monday morning, Jon Burge will walk the long lobby of the federal courthouse in Chicago to the elevators that will take him to his arraignment.

A media horde will greet him.

Reporters, producers and a crush of cameras will lock on Burge as makes his way past marshals and metal detectors.

The white-haired former Chicago police commander whose name became synonymous with the torture of African-American suspects does not walk briskly anymore. At 60, he has knee problems. After his indictment on federal perjury and obstruction charges last week, Burge winced as he came down the steps of the Tampa courthouse.

"I'm old. I'm hurting," he told Sun-Times reporter Natasha Korecki, who broke the story of his indictment. "Please leave me alone."

To our discredit, too many of us left Burge alone for years. And, though the feds are finally prosecuting him, they don't get a complete pass either.

This business of accountability can make us testy.

Mayor Daley, for instance, late last week was sick of questions about whether he, as the Cook County state's attorney, along with his first assistant, Dick Devine, the current state's attorney, should have investigated Burge 26 years ago. In 1982, police killer Andrew Wilson's face looked normal going into an interrogation room, but resembled ground beef hours later. In 1982, then-Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek said he wrote a letter bringing that to the attention of Daley and Devine.

Marin correctly lays some of the blame on her local media colleagues. It is a understatement to say that it is to her Chicago area media colleague's discredit that the torture went on too long. The main purpose of the First Amendment is to expose this sort of corruption so that it doesn't occur. Yet, it did, and its after effects still continue nearly four decades later.

This wasn't merely one rogue cop committing torture on occasion. Instead, it was a "rogue" area of cops committing torture on systematic scale. None of them have yet been punished for the torture itself. The current mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, was Cook County State's Attorney from 1980-1989. (the county where Chicago is located) That was during some of Burge's most vicious acts of torture. Daley did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO STOP IT. That's either a case of incompetence of the highest order or something worse.

Anita Alvarez, the current candidate for Cook County State's Attorney, has been in the state's attorney's office since the early 1980's. She is touting her experience as one of her biggest strength, but it is that "experience" that looked the other way while Burge systematically tortured suspects. Burge was finally indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald the transplant from New York. Had a Chicago area prosecutor been asked to finally bring Burge to justice, we likely would be waiting forever. What about a Chicago Police Department that also looked the other way while this went on? What about a Chicago news media that looked the other way while this went on? The Tribune and the Sun Times left it to the Chicago Reader to break news on this story until very recently. When the two biggest newspapers in the city can't be bothered to expose systematic torture there really is a problem? What about an entire political machine that looked the other way while this occurred? Something like this didn't merely happen in a vacuum. It happened because an entire political, media, and power structure allowed it to happen...whether by wilfull ignorance or worse.