When elected officials say they’re shocked to hear about police misconduct, they’re overlooking the prior excessive-force complaints their own cities have been … overlooking:
First, how in the world does a police officer with 45 excessive-force complaints rise through the ranks to become a Chicago police commander in the wake of the infamous Jon Burge police brutality cases?
Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Burge and several police officers under his command were accused of torturing as many as 200 suspects in the 1970s and ’80s to get confessions.
Still, it took a steady drumbeat over two decades by tenacious civil rights attorneys for Burge to be held accountable.
By then, the statute of limitations prohibited Burge from being tried in the torture cases. He was, however, convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about police torture tactics and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison.
Via Emanuel’s lack of outrage on Police Cmdr. Evans’ case highlights gap @ Chicago Sun-Times.