1. The Ringleader: Jon Burge
Author Archives: John Conroy
Posted inNews & Politics
Police Torture in Chicago
An archive of articles by John Conroy on police torture and related issues
Posted inNews & Politics
The Persistence of Andrew Wilson
A cop killer who fought to expose torture in the Chicago Police Department has died, but his testimony from beyond the grave could still help bring down its perpetrators.
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Police Torture: Is This a Gag?
The city’s lawyers claim a gag order prevents them from discussing the strange deal they made to settle police torture lawsuits. There’s no order.
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Follow-Up: The Meter’s Still Running and the Mayor’s Still Mum
Since 2003 the city has paid some $7 million in legal fees to fight five police torture lawsuits it probably can’t win. The latest turn in this saga involves a secret settlement agreement designed to protect Daley.
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Twenty Questions
Lawyers for police torture victims are trying to get Mayor Daley on the stand. We’ve got a few things to ask him too.
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Killed On Camera
Officer Alvin Weems shot an unarmed man point-blank in view of CTA security cameras. Investigators recommended that he be fired. Phil Cline promoted him.
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The Good Cop
Detective Frank Laverty did the right thing–and paidfor it for years.
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Blind Justices?
The prosecutors who sent police torture victims to prison are now the judges who keep them there.
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Doe in the Headlights
By trying so hard to keep his name out of the police torture report, Lawrence Hyman has made sure it’s a name we’ll always associate with police torture.
Posted inNews & Politics
Who Said What When
In “The Police Torture Scandal: A Who’s Who” [June 16] I inadvertently gave short shrift to two other journalists when describing the history of the torture allegations. In 1989 Rob Warden, of Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, then editor of Chicago Lawyer, and journalist Mary Ann Williams first reported that torture had occurred at Area […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Police Torture Scandals: A Who’s Who
Since the first reports of Chicago police torture surfaced a quarter century ago the list has swelled to nearly 200 cases involving dozens of public employees–and still no one has been prosecuted. Now, with the results of a four-year, multimillion dollar