In response to Chicago’s long history of torture, activists, family members, and survivors have chosen to organize, share their stories and make the issue public in the media.
The work of our campaign includes fighting to free survivors of police torture and wrongful conviction by attending court dates to support survivors and their families, pressuring the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office to vacate wrongful convictions, and demanding that Illinois Governor Pritzker sign pardons for all survivors.
Get involved with the campaign by signing up at the link below, and take action with us to demand the pardoning of all torture survivors.
The CFIST Campaign
The Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST) is a group of survivors, family members, and advocates of justice, concerned for the well-being and dignity of those who have suffered at the hands of the criminal legal system.
We seek to free all survivors of police torture and wrongful conviction, and to ensure their health, support, and success upon release. We work towards the vision of a humane, bottom-up, community focused transformative justice system, within which police are held accountable for their human rights violations.
Our values of collective liberation, healing, and community guide our work, through which we contribute to dismantling white supremacy and the destruction it has caused in our society, particularly in the case of mass incarceration. We seek to continue the legacy of our ancestors and freedom fighters before us in this work towards justice and liberation until we are all free.
OUR IMMEDIATE DEMANDS ARE:
1.
That the Governor immediately grant pardons for all those whose cases
have been deemed credible cases of torture by the governor-appointed
Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC).
2.
That the State’s Attorney immediately move to vacate convictions for all those
framed, tortured and wrongfully convicted, particularly cases involving
detectives where an established pattern of torture, forced confession and
wrongful convictions holds, as clearly outlined in our comprehensive report.
Why Pressure the Governor
Governor Pritzker has the power to right this wrong with the stroke of a pen and use his executive authority to release those who have been wrongfully convicted due to police torture. Governor Pritzker, the people of Illinois call on you to use your power and pardon all police torture survivors now, before it's too late!
chicago's history of police torture
Chicago has a long history of torture, police violence, and cover-ups by police officers, rightly earning it the title "torture capital of the United States" (Flint Taylor). The murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969 were notorious examples of brazen police brutality in Chicago. In 1968, Mayor Richard J. Daley ordered Chicago Police to shoot to maim and shoot to kill "looters" in the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.
Police torture has existed for decades, but it received renewed attention in the 1990s when the Chicago Reader released a series of articles exposing systemic patterns and practices of torture under police commander Jon Burge. The first of these articles, “House of Screams,” covered the case of Andrew Wilson, who in 1982 was so badly beaten and gruesomely tortured that the medical director at Cook County Jail Hospital was shocked and brought it to the immediate attention of the State's Attorney and CPD Superintendent. In 1989, Wilson sued the city of Chicago, but Burge and all the officers under his command were acquitted.
Jon Burge had become a Chicago police officer in 1970, after returning from serving in Vietnam. Beginning in 1972, Burge tortured Black and brown men until they confessed to crimes they did not commit, using torture tactics he was known to have perfected against prisoners of war during his time as a military police investigator in Vietnam. The high clearance rate he earned as a result meant that he went up the ranks quickly. In 1981, he began to serve as police commander. This is when he trained other officers to use the same disturbing torture tactics.
The officers under Burge’s command became known as the Midnight Crew. They went on to train others in practices of torture, perpetuating deep corruption across the city that included not only tortured confessions from suspects, but threats to their families, coercion of witnesses, and more. In our report, you can read the details of 407 cases of torture and wrongful conviction by CPD detectives. These patterns and practices both pre-dated and outlived Jon Burge, in the detectives that he trained, and in those who engaged his tactics without rising to his level of infamy. The false, tortured confessions these officers collected are still used to make and uphold convictions while the real killers go free. The police have never been interested in true justice. Their only goal is to humiliate, imprison and murder the Black and Latine people of Chicago. Click here to learn more about the torture detectives and their web of cooperation.
the movement to fight back
In response to this torture, activists, family members, and survivors chose to organize, to share their stories and make the issue public in the media, the courts, and the international community. As a result of this struggle, on May 6, 2015, the Chicago City Council passed historic legislation that provides reparations to the survivors of police torture in Chicago, making it the only city in the United States to pass legislation of this kind.
In 2016, a torture prosecutor admitted in an FBI 302 report that the Englewood Four teens - Michael Saunders, Vincent Thames, Harold Richardson, and Terrill Swift - were coerced into making false confessions, which were undermined by DNA evidence. The detectives involved in this case were the same Midnight Crew detectives that tortured, coerced, and framed hundreds of other men and women into false confessions. Many of these cases don’t have evidence against the wrongfully convicted besides the false confessions.
Yet, the cops guilty of these actions are still on the force or retired without penalty, and there are still hundreds of innocent people in prison as a result of these police crimes. In the current system, there is an automatic assumption of police credibility that is nearly impossible to overturn. You can read more about the detectives involved in this torture here. These same police who have been proven to be involved in torture and wrongful conviction continue to be called as witnesses by special prosecutors and the States Attorney’s office, despite their well established pattern of perjury and torture. This is unconscionable. We are also calling on the State’s Attorney’s office move quickly to vacate the convictions for all those framed, tortured, and wrongfully convicted, particularly cases involving detectives where an established pattern of torture, forced confession, and wrongful convictions holds. You can read about our campaign pressuring the State’s Attorney here.
The actions of survivors, families, and of other advocates for justice also pushed lawmakers in Springfield to establish the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) in 2009. The TIRC is a commission appointed by the Governor that investigates claims of torture. We believe that this commission works in good faith and has enough validity within the current system to be a path for torture survivors to get out of prison. Still, many survivors whose claims of torture have been deemed credible by the TIRC sit behind bars. Click here to read stories that have been reviewed by the TIRC. The TIRC also remains underfunded, understaffed, and limited in scope, with a backlog of nearly five-hundred claims. Click here to read more about the amendments to the TIRC we’re fighting to pass through the Illinois legislature.
Join our team in ORGANIZING FOR JUSTICE
Download our CFIST canvassing literature for print and distributionSURVIVORS
Beyond those whose cases have been reviewed by the ILLINOIS TORTURE INQUIRY AND RELIEF COMMISSION - TIRC, there are countless more victims of torture and wrongful conviction at the hands of the Chicago Police Department.
DETECTIVES
As of 2022, we have identified 223 exonerated cases of torture involving these 22 detectives. It is unacceptable for a police officer to have even one count of wrongful conviction on their sheet.
The graphics below show the statistics for each of the most heinous detectives’ involvement in torture and wrongful conviction.
TAKE ACTION!
Take action to free ALL torture survivors IN CHICAGO!
CFIST Meetings
The CFIST Campaign has bimonthly meetings: Every 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month from 6:00-7:30 PM.
You can find a full list of monthly campaign meetings, subcommittee meetings, and survivor court dates at the calendar on our homepage.
Pardons for All Torture Survivors
Sign the petition below to Governor Pritzker in demands for pardons for all survivors of police torture!
CALL THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE TODAY!
We are also asking people to call Illinois Governor Prtizker’s office and demand that he sign the hundreds of clemency petitions currently sitting on his desk. There are particular cases in which we have been working closely with survivors or their family members, and their clemency petitions have been brought to our attention.
Please use the phone numbers and calling script below to make a call today!
Governor Chicago Office: 312-814-2121
Governor Springfield Office: 217-782-6830
Calling Script:
“Hello, my name is ____ and I’m calling to respectfully urge the governor grant clemency for all those who are wrongfully convicted.
There are ten petitioners I want to mention by name for the governor to grant clemency. They are Gregory Minniefield, Rico Clark, Antoine Chest, Jovon Scott, Tamon Russell, Alonzo Franklin, Devon Showers, Brian Jones, Michael Harper, and Cordell Sanders."
Who Supports Us
Our campaign has the support of a wide range of individuals and organizations throughout Chicago and beyond.
Below is an incomplete and growing list:
Arab American Action Network
Black Lives Matter, Chicago
Chicago Metropolitan Association, Illinois Conference, United Church of Christ
Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America
Chicago Torture Justice Center
Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine
Jewish Voice for Peace
Innocent Demand Justice
Rev. Julian DeShazier, Senior Pastor University Church, Chicago
Equity and Transformation, Chicago
Interfaith Action Group on Peace and Justice in Israel
Jewish Council on Urban Affairs
Alice Kim, Director of Human Rights Practice,
Pozen Family Center, University of Chicago
Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity
Rev. Dr. Aaron J. McLeod, Esq., Pastor,
Gorham United Methodist Church
Rev. Dr. Waltrina N. Middleton, Executive Director,
Community Renewal Society
Rev. James Moody, Pastor, Quinn Chapel, Chicago
Rev. Otis Moss, III, Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ
Dian Palmer, President, SEIU L 73
Parole Illinois
Aislinn, Pulley, Co-Executive Director of the
Chicago Torture Justice Center, Black Live Matter Chicago
Bill Ryan, Pathway to Community
Service Employees International Union Local 73
US Palestinian Community Network
Uptown Peoples Law Center, Alan Mills, Executive Director
Rob Warden, Co-founder, Injustice Watch, Executive Director Emeritus of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Tanya Watkins, Executive Director,
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)