WHAT: Rally & Pack the City Council Hearing
FINANCE JUSTICE, NOT TORTURE

WHEN: Wednesday, Dec. 6: 10 a.m. rally outside; 11 a.m. City Council Hearing
inside

WHERE: City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle (at Washington)

Several Chicago aldermen have introduced resolutions to strip disgraced former Chicago Police Commander and torturer Jon Burge of his pension and for the city to stop paying his legal fees. They also want to open public hearings about a special prosecutor¹s report released in July. The report took four years and millions of dollars of taxpayer money to acknowledge
that torture took place inside Chicago police stations but claimed that it was too late to do anything about it. The City Council hearings on these resolutions will take place Wednesday. Action to right the wrongs done to Burge's victims would be long overdue.

Burge and the officers who worked under him in Area 2 and Area 3 police stations led a torture ring that got as many as 192 African-Americans to "confess" after enduring such interrogation methods as suffocation with a plastic typewriter bag, electro-shock to the ears and genitals, and Russian
roulette. Burge was fired for systematic torture in 1993, yet he receives a $3400 per month pension to finance his comfortable retirement in Florida, and the City of Chicago has paid millions of dollars towards his legal defense.

Meanwhile, the City of Chicago is fighting tooth and nail to avoid paying millions of dollars in civil suits to torture victims Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, Leroy Orange and Aaron Patterson, who suffered years on Death Row before former Gov. George Ryan pardoned them based on innocence.

At the same time, Cook County and the State of Illinois pay a small army of prosecutors to fight the appeals of dozens of torture victims who continue to languish in prison, some for as long as 25 years. They deserve to have their "confessions" thrown out and to receive new trials at the very least!

It's time for the City of Chicago to STOP financing torture and START financing justice! Please come and make our demands heard:

*STOP paying Jon Burge's pension and legal fees.
*STOP fighting against the settlement of civil suits by torture victims and exonerated death row inmates Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, Leroy Orange and Aaron Patterson
*NEW TRIALS FOR POLICE TORTURE VICTIMS NOW!

Sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Comite Exigimos Justicia, Hands Off Assata-Chicago, International Socialist Organization, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago (list in formation).

For more information, or to co-sponsor, call (773)955-4841 or email julien (at) nodeathpenalty.org.