The former CPD chief served less than four years in prison after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2010, but has never been prosecuted for torture.
“The Chicago Police Department has turned a blind eye to the Burge scandal for far too long,” said Locke Bowman, who is also the director of the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law.
According to Bowman, the CPD is “racist, because of their manor of policing in colored communities and the number of disproportionate arrests in non-violent areas like mob and drug activity.”
Chicago police have created a “culture of impunity,” the professor stated. “Police have never owned up to any of their mistakes.”
Bowman welcomed the move as a positive step toward reparation in the cases of torture committed by the CPD.
Over 200 African-Americans, including minors, were tortured during Burge’s tenure, according to local rights groups.
