Fund communities. Not police.

CHICAGO — Gerald Reed went back to court here in another bid to win his freedom. He has been incarcerated on frame-up charges extracted by police torture for a 1990 double homicide that was overturned last year.

An investigation by Abigail Blachman at Injustice Watch uncovers “the slow pace, and high costs, of reviewing the cases of defendants, almost all black men convicted at a young age, who say they were beaten into false confessions by Chicago police detectives, including the disgraced former Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge and his crew.”

Our Freedom Songbook partnership with Old Town School of Folk Music offers support for survivors of police violence through community and song. Learn more about the program through articles and video by YES! Magazine, Block Club Chicago, and ABC7.

Learn more about the Reparations Won curriculum to be taught in Chicago Public Schools. Includes video.

A documented timeline of events with sources. Compiled by Chicago Torture Justice Memorials.

“Amid continued accusations of police misconduct, the force must contend with a digital rehashing of a sordid chapter in its history.” By Juleyka Lantigua-Williams

“Reparations paid to 57 victims of police torture in a bid to soothe tensions with the city's African-American community were only distributed to those whose claims were found to be credible after a months-long vetting process.”

A history of the movement to make Chicago pay for the crimes of former police commander Jon Burge. By Flint Taylor.

“Chicago’s reparations package was driven by the inadequacy of traditional legal remedies. After decades of litigation, activism, and investigative journalism, the truth about systemic torture of African Americans, including beatings, electrocution, and suffocation, often accompanied by racialized verbal abuse, has been exposed. But there has never been full accountability.”

“timeline of events beginning from the time Jon Burge was first promoted to be a Chicago Police Detective until the time he was eventually convicted in federal court for perjury and obstruction of justice.”

“For the next two decades, using the ever mounting evidence that the torture by Burge’s crew was systemic and profoundly racist, Cannon and his lawyers fought for his freedom; in 2004 Cannon was exonerated, and in 2007 he was released from prison. “

“Momentum is growing for a bill to finally help heal the wounds of years of torture of black men by the Chicago Police Department.”

“A decade after Illinois Governor George Ryan emptied death row and pardoned four innocent men who were tortured by police under Commander Jon Burge, the city of Chicago has not admitted to its collective crimes.”