"I was handcuffed the first time that the Illinois State police shocked me with the stun gun. It was the kind that looks like a little rectangular box. I thought I had gone out. My body was shaking. They punched me in the chest. They came in and told me 'Why do you come into our neighborhoods and kill people.' I said 'I didn't kill anyone', and that's when the cops went off on me. "

"He removed what looked like a gun from his holster. It was another type of stun gun and shocked me again. I signed to stop the torture!"- Zackary Wright
[tortured with a stun gun during interrogation forced to sign false confession to crime he did not commit 2004]

The special prosecutor is releasing a report from an investigation that responds to allegations of police torture in Chicago out of Areas 2& 3 by former police commander Jon Burge and his detectives. Although Burge was fired in 1993 for the torture of over 118 Black and Latino men with electro-shock, suffocation, burnings, and severe beating, Jon Burge created a model for policing and extracting false confessions from Black and Latino suspects that continues.

For Zackary Wright, and many other police torture victims who fall out of range of the special prosecutor's jurisdiction, the ghost of the notorious Jon Burge and his police torture tactics still haunt young Black and Latino men.

Zackary Wright, a 23-year-old Chicago resident, was apprehended by the Riverdale police, detained and interrogated from November 30th - December 2nd of 2004.

Zackary Wright was tortured with the use of stun guns during the interrogation by the Illinois State police, and local uniformed Riverdale cops who repeatedly beat and punched Zackary and forced him to sign a confession to a crime he did not commit.

On December 2nd after sustaining abuse for approximately 3 days. Zackary Wright signed a forced confession to "stop the torture." Afterwards he was administered medication from the jail to help him sleep because the electricity from the stun guns aggravated his nerves and would not permit him to sleep

A stun gun is a "non-lethal" way to deter or apprehend possible "assailants," but once the "assailant" is in custody the use of a stun gun is excessive force, brutality and torture.

Stun guns work by delivering a high voltage shock. A stun gun keys into the nervous system and dumps high energy into the muscles at a high frequency that makes the muscles work very rapidly giving intense pain, muscle contraction, confusion, and disorientation. Stun guns and stun batons use a static charge deployment from 100,000 volts to 600,000 volts.

Zackary Wright rallied family members and members of the Enough Is Enough! Campaign, to bare witness to the taser marks left on his body, which had begun to fade because of time. Torture is designed to leave no marks.

"There is a systematic problem with police abuse in our communities and something needs to be done! Enough Is Enough!" Wright says.

There have been many cases of abuse and misuse of stun guns at the hands of law enforcement officials, including reports of use on a 6 year old boy, a 5th grader because he refused to give up a video game to the principal, and the death of a Sacramento inmate in the county jail, but few if any accounts of stun guns being used during the interrogation process.

Amesty International released a report calling for a moratorium on the use of stun guns and Tasers by law enforcement officials because of the lack of long-term study on people but not because of the excessive misuse and over use of stun guns that is becoming more and more apparent.

We need to make a call that stun gun use not be permitted or used once the suspect is in custody or has already been apprehended. We need to make a call to end police torture in all its forms against young Black and Latino men. Enough Is Enough - end police torture and wrongful convictions.

If you would like more information or to get involved in the campaign for police torture victim Zackary Wright please contact the Enough Is Enough! Campaign: (773) 488-4238