Another piece from Alice Kim.  See the original on Dancing the Dialectic

I've had Jon Burge on my mind. He was sentenced to four and a half years yesterday for obstructing justice and lying about the torture of more than 100 African American men and women at Area 2 and 3 Police headquarters in the 1970s and 1980s. 

This is far less time than the twenty-one long years that Ronald Kitchen spent behind bars (thirteen of those years on death row), wrongfully convicted as the result of a tortured confession that put him and his co-defendant Marvin Reeves away for a crime they did not commit. And it's far less time than the twenty-eight years of hard time served by Mark Clements, who was beaten repeatedly by police officers under Burge's command when he was only sixteen years old. 

Jon Burge was responsible for destroying the lives and livelihoods of over 100 African American men and their families. He abused his power and authority as a commanding police officer. And he got away with it for years. 

Justifiably, Ronnie Kitchen and Mark Clements are angry that Jon Burge isn't doing more time. For them, four and a half years feels like a mere slap on the wrist. Like Ronnie said to me on the phone this morning, "Four years ain't shit." 

I wasn't in their shoes. I didn't experience the torture they did. I didn't have years of my life stolen from me. And, I'm in awe of the grace, compassion and generosity with which they approach their lives each and every day. They don't carry a chip on their shoulders or feel sorry for themselves, but yes, they are demanding justice. 

So I ask myself, was justice served in Burge's trial, conviction and sentencing? And this is what I think. 

It's a disgrace that Burge himself never confessed to his crimes. It's a disgrace that he has shown no remorse and instead, chooses to cover up the torture that he and officers under his command systematically carried out for nearly two decades.

It's shameful that he was never charged for his crimes of torture. Because let's remember that Burge was convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury -- not torture -- because the statute of limitations on the acts of torture had expired. 

And for this, I hold Mayor Richard Daley responsible. He learned about the torture in February 1982 when he was States Attorney but he failed to investigate and he failed to prosecute the torture. Then as Mayor of Chicago he and city officials sat on the torture claims for years. Mayor Daley and those empowered to carry out justice failed the people of Chicago by failing to act. 

But more than that, the torture didn't happen in a vacuum. We had a culture that didn’t value Black lives, a court system where racist practices were the norm, and a tough on crime national agenda that trumpeted a war on drugs but in reality meant a war on Black and Brown people and a war on the poor. 

At Cook County Court house, or "Crook County Court House" (as my friend and exonerated death row prisoner Darby Tillis likes to call it) prosecutors played a game called the "two-ton contest." The aim was to be the first prosecutor to convict defendants whose weight totaled 4000 pounds. Upon convicted, men and women, were marched into a special room with a scale in it and weighed. Because most of the defendants were African American, behind closed doors, the competition was called “Niggers by the pound.” 

Far from the pursuit of truth or justice, winning at any cost was the name of the game. It was a time when the state’s attorney’s office kept a chart of wins and losses, each victory earning a prosecutor a green sticker next to his name, and each loss an embarrassing red one. 

But the story of Jon Burge and Chicago’s torture scandal isn’t just a story about the racist practices of prosecutors and Chicago’s finest. It’s also about the resistance that emerged in defiance to the powers that be. 

If it weren't for the actions of people who chose to care and to act, we wouldn't have come this far in exposing torture in our very own backyard. So, at this moment, I choose to honor those who have fought for justice:

The torture survivors who persevered in the ugly face of injustice (and their dank prison cells) and had the courage to insist that their lives mattered.

The mothers, daughters, sisters and family members who stood by their loved ones sides, who spoke out when no one believed them, who loved unconditionally and learned to hold their heads up high in solidarity with one another. 

The lawyers whose unceasing and fastidious efforts led to important legal battles and the exoneration of eleven torture survivors who had been wrongfully convicted. 

The activists whose vigilance gave voice to the plight of Burge's victims through countless prison visits, letter-writing and petition campaigns, court-watching initiatives, public educational forums, and demonstrations.

The journalists who took the time to uncover the truth and had the courage to tell the truth. 

If these forces hadn't come together, Jon Burge would still be basking in the Florida sun and fishing on his boat, which he had the gall to name the Vigilante. Or even worse, he wouldn't have been fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1992, and who knows how many other African American men and their families would have suffered at his hands if he had remained on the force. 

Jon Burge's sentencing was a sobering moment for me. To be sure, his sentence comes nowhere near the suffering and prison time that his victims have endured. Yet, with the conclusion of his trial, our efforts to win justice for Burge's victims have been validated. 

"The jury didn't believe you, and neither did I," said Judge Joan Lefkow when she announced her ruling. "How can I trust justice will be served when the justice system is defiled. When an officer is convicted of lying about what he did or saw or new, consequences follow." 

After twenty-five years of struggle, Jon Burge is finally exposed for what he did and who he is. 

So, I believe that we need to claim his conviction and sentencing as a victory for our side. I believe that it represents a strike against torture with impunity and a strike against the specter of racism that continues to haunt us even in the 21st century. This should fuel our work to keep fighting for new hearings for the twenty-four men tortured by Burge who remain incarcerated, compensation for those who have been exonerated, and psychological support for all torture survivors.