Logan was finally exonerated and released last year.

The tragedy of this police misconduct was not only the 26 years lost behind bars of an innocent man's life, but that the framing of an innocent man meant that the real killers were left free to kill more. In 1982, less than a week after Logan was falsely arrested for murder of an off-duty police officer, the men who actually committed that crime, Andrew Wilson and Edgar Hope, murdered other police officers.

Logan was arrested after Wilson and Hope shot two off-duty police officers in a south side McDonald's restaurant, killing one of them. No physical evidence linked Logan to the crime, and two alibi witnesses placed him in a different location when it was committed. During the McDonald's crime, Wilson and Hope stole guns from the officers. One of the guns Hope used to kill another officer two weeks later on a CTA bus. The other gun was found in the possession of Wilson when he was arrested by Burge.

Thursday's suit alleges that Burge and his colleagues deliberately suppressed this and other physical evidence linking Wilson to the earlier crime, and manipulated line-ups and threatened witnesses to falsely finger Logan, the man they already had in custody. So-called "street files" – police reports, notes, and witness statements – were destroyed. Moreover Attorney Thomas Bennett, a former Chicago Police detective, testified under oath that Burge openly bragged about Logan being wrongfully convicted and that the real murderer was Wilson.

During a line-up Burge used suggestiveness and outright coercion to get two witnesses to falsely finger Logan. Evidence from another line-up, at Cook County Jail, was suppressed when it didn't return the result Burge wanted.



Thursday's suit alleges that had former Police Commander Burge and his colleagues done their legal duty to disclose all evidence in the case, Mr. Logan would not have lost 26 years of his life in prison. During those many years he was denied the company of many loved ones, several of whom passed while he was incarcerated.

Besides Mr. Logan, Jon Burge and his colleagues are alleged to have railroaded over 100 African American men into long term prison sentences, often using tortured "confessions" to do so. Thirteen men ended up on death row as a result. Thus far the City of Chicago has paid out 10's of millions in verdicts and out of court settlements for Burge's actions in these cases.