Report: Emanuel Wants To Settle Remaining Burge Lawsuits
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to talk the city trying to settle lawsuits over police torture allegations that have gone on for decades in Chicago.
As WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports, the actions of police Cmdr. Jon Burge are considered among the most disgraceful in Chicago history, and Mayor Emanuel tells the Chicago Sun-Times that it's time that comes to an end.
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He tells the newspaper that the city has "a future to build, not a past to settle," and he doesn't want to see torture lawsuits continuing to drag on in court.
If the cases were settled, it would eliminate the need for retired Mayor Richard M. Daley to be deposed by attorneys for alleged victims. Last week, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled that Daley could be named as a defendant in the case of one torture victim, Michael Tillman, who says he confessed to a 1986 rape and murder that he did not commit while being tortured at the hands of Burge and his detectives.
Daley was Cook County State's Attorney at the time.
Tillman's conviction was later tossed.
Burge was convicted of perjury last year for lying about torturing prisoners into making confessions. He was sentenced in January to 4 1/2 years in prison, and reported to a federal penitentiary in Raleigh, N.C., in March.
Since Burge was fired from the Police Department in 1993, his name has become synonymous with police brutality in Chicago.
