WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Chicago City Council Finance Committee has approved a $5.5 million reparations fund for citizens who were tortured during former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge’s tenure in the 1960s and 1970s, according to media reports.
“The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee unanimously approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to create a $5.5 million ‘reparations’ fund to compensate victims allegedly tortured by the convicted former Area 2 Commander [Jon Burge] and his co-horts,” The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Tuesday.
On April 14, 2015, media reported the Chicago authorities would offer a reparations package to the victims of torture.
In October 2013, a Burge ordinance was introduced in the City Council to provide financial compensation and material support to torture survivors and their families, but was never passed.
The law must get final approval from the entire Chicago City Council on Wednesday, which will include a $100,000 cap on individual awards, and if the reparation fund is approved, it will be divided evenly among the victims, according to local media.
Burge was released in February 2015 from a halfway house after serving less than four years in prison for lying about torture of suspects, but was never prosecuted for torture.
