On May 30, 2020, the Chicago Freedom School, located in the South Loop, opened its space to provide support (including take-out pizza and store bought snacks) and rides home to Black and Brown young people protesting the racist police murders in downtown Chicago.

At 11 p.m., several Chicago Police Officers and members of the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) showed up at CFS’ door and aggressively demanded to search the premises asserting that CFS was “housing and feeding protestors.”

“Many youth who had just experienced police violence while protesting said violence, came to CFS to use the bathroom, drink water, and get connected to a ride home – since the Mayor had just instituted a curfew, raised the bridges, and shut down the CTA.  We chose to open our doors for immediate safety because we are dedicated to young people’s well-being,” says Wellness Director Jacqulyn Hamilton. “The City & Police colluding to search CFS that night, without a warrant, and threaten to arrest staff present, including myself, for daring to serve pizza – was in character for how this City and police treat Black & Brown young people – with disdain.” 

After searching the premises, BACP members issued CFS a “Cease and Desist” order falsely claiming the CFS was “preparing and serving food” on its premises without a Retail Food Establishment License. The order directed the CPD to arrest CFS employees if they continue to provide youth participants commercially prepared food and fine CFS $500-1,000 each day it continues to provide food, thereby effectively shutting down this small, not-for-profit organization.

“We appreciate the love & support we have received from our community, in light of our mistreatment at the hands of the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department. We are bringing this lawsuit to ensure that none of our programs, young people, or staff are at continued risk, and to affirm our support for the righteous protests against police violence against Black people and for the defunding of police,” says incoming Executive Director, Tony Alvarado-Rivera.

The lawsuit seeks to stop the City from enforcing this order. The suit also seeks vindication and damages as the search and order are attempts by City and CPD officials to retaliate against the CFS for exercising its 1^st Amendment rights to support young people and to support the protests against racist police violence. Read the filed complaint here.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are Joey Mogul of the People’s Law Office and Sheila Bedi of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

“We are outraged that the CPD and BACP illegally raided the CFS’s premises and issued an illegal, unconstitutional, and frankly bogus, cease and desist order to the CFS” said Joey Mogul and Sheila Bedi. “The Chicago Freedom School provided critical support to young Black and Brown people on May 30th. They should be revered for their work, not threatened with arrest and being shut down.”

The Chicago Freedom School is a non-profit organization, inspired by the Mississippi Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights era, which provides a space where young people and adult allies can study the work of past movements, deepen their understanding of current social problems, build new coalitions, and develop strategies for change.  Learn more at ChicagoFreedomSchool.org

The Cook County Public Defender on Monday joined a broad coalition of community groups, activists, and attorneys in filing a lawsuit against the City of Chicago for denying people in police custody access to counsel and phones.

The lawsuit further states that the City’s history of unlawful refusals became more widespread following the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent citywide protests over police brutality and racism. Follow the link to view the filed lawsuit.

“Since 1963, the law has required that every person arrested is entitled to communicate with their loved ones and counsel,” said Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli. “For seven decades, Chicago police have not been held accountable for this systemic violation of human rights. If the police just followed the law, we would no longer be the false confession capital of the world and communities would have greater trust for and cooperation with the Chicago Police Department.” PD QUOTE

Under Illinois law, people who are arrested have the right to communicate and consult with an attorney and the right to make phone calls within an hour of arriving at their first place of custody.  However, the Chicago Police Department has a long history of depriving arrestees access to a phone to reach out to counsel or loved ones.

On Friday, May 29, and throughout that following weeks, more than 2,600 demonstrators were arrested by CPD and many were denied access to counsel. The lawsuit details how CPD systemically impeded attorneys from finding and talking to their clients.

In filing the suit, the Public Defender joins a coalition that includes Black Lives Matter Chicago, Stop Chicago, #LetUsBreathe Collective, UMedics, and GoodKids MadCity. Each organization has members who were detained and denied their right to make a phone call and contact their attorneys. The National Lawyers Guild Chicago, also a plaintiff in the suit, has been denied access to clients in police stations, including during the recent protests. 

”On Sunday May 31st, I was slammed to the ground and beaten with batons by CPD while trying to protect my brother and his fiancée, #LetUsBreathe co-founders Damon Williams and Jennifer Pagán, and our comrade Christopher Brown,” said Kristiana Colon of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. “Horrified by the excessive force and unjust targeting of my family and fellow organizers, I did my best to intervene and was injured in the process. When I arrived at 51st & Wentworth to try and locate them, the supervising officer told me they weren’t there. I asked again if he was telling the truth and he said he had no reason to lie to me. After several hours of fear and confusion, it turned out they were there after all, but were denied access to counsel for several more hours. Our organization supports mutual aid efforts across the South & West sides, and had to redirect our time and resources to a rapid response rally to get our people out of jail. This is one of the many ways superfluous police encounters are a theft of the energy that should be spent on keeping people safe.”

“I sat in the hospital handcuffed to a wheelchair for nearly 8 hours before I saw a lawyer,” said activist and artist Damon Williams, who was arrested following a protest on May 31, 2020. “I hadn’t slept. I thought I was alone. I was afraid I would be locked up with no end in sight. I wasn’t the only person in custody crying out for information and asking to talk to my lawyer. I have nightmares about being in custody and terrified that I’d be locked up without any explanation or contact with the outside world.”

The City and the Chicago Police Department has cynically used  the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to deny people their rights while under arrest.  After Gov. Pritzker issued his stay-at-home order on March 20, the Public Defender was forced to curtail in-person attorney-client visits, and informed CPD that all attorney-client conversations would take place by phone until further notice. CPD refused to coordinate mandatory confidential telephone visits for clients in custody unless and until the Public Defender agreed that CPD would not be liable if they overheard any attorney-client conversations. The Public Defender alternatively asked for virtual visits with clients, similar to the system used by the Cook County State’s Attorney to talk to its witnesses. That request was denied.  

Between April 16, 2020 and June 5, 2020, the Public Defender’s Office surveyed 1,468 people in bond court. Nearly a quarter (23%) stated that CPD never offered them access to a phone at any point while they were detained at the police station. Those who were allowed phone access were forced to wait an average of 4.2 hours.

“Denying phone access is a key CPD scare tactic to impede access to counsel,” said Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center, which represents the plaintiffs. “The result is that detainees are cut off entirely, without legal guidance or protection from police coercion.”

The recent practice is just an exacerbation of the decades-long practice to deny arrestees access to attorneys and phone calls. It is a practice that was called out by the current Mayor when she was part of the Police Accountability Task Force that formed following the shooting of Laquan McDonald.

“We had documented for decades how the denial of phone access leads to false arrests, false charges and wrongful convictions, and costs the City money,” explained First Defense Legal Aid Executive Director Eliza Solowiej, who served on the Task Force with the current Mayor, and was part of the team that found that requiring access to phones with in a hour of arrest (as required by state law) would be one of the foundational reforms to ending police misconduct.

Plaintiffs have filed a writ of mandamus in the Circuit Court of Cook County Chancery Division to force the City to comply with Illinois law governing access to counsel and to phones.

Plaintiffs are represented by Brendan Shiller of Shiller Preyar Jarard & Samuels, Craig Futterman of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, Alexa Van Brunt of the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Sheila A. Bedi of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Joey L. Mogul of the People’s Law Office, and Daniel Massoglia of First Defense Legal Aid

Today, May 6, is the 5th anniversary of the Reparations legislation. This unprecedented legislation providing reparations to Chicago Police Torture (Burge) survivors passed Chicago’s City Council on May 6, 2015.  The legislation provides concrete, redress for the two decades long pattern of racially motivated police torture committed by and under the command of notorious former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge’s at Area 2 and 3 Police Headquarters from 1972 to 1991, including:

·a formal apology for the torture

·the creation of a history lesson about the Burge torture cases taught in Chicago Public schools to 8^th and 10^th graders;

·the creation of the Chicago Torture Justice Center in Englewood, Chicago that provides specialized counseling and social services to the Burge torture survivors, family members and all impacted by police violence;

·the creation of a $5.5 million Reparations Fund for Burge Torture Victims that provides financial compensation to 57 of the Burge torture survivors who are still with us;

·free enrollment in Chicago City Colleges for the Burge torture survivors, immediate family members and their grandchildren recognizing the legacies of harm caused by the torture and decades of incarceration suffered by the Burge torture survivors and families; and

·the creation of a public memorial to the Burge torture survivors.

The legislation was the fruit of decades of litigation, independent journalism and organizing, which included a concerted grassroots campaign led by Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM), Project NIA, We Charge Genocide and Amnesty International, USA, during the midst of #BlackLivesMatter movement of 2014 and 2015. We are grateful to Black People Against Police Torture for their work in sounding the initial demand reparations.

We are proud of our work in representing survivors of police torture at the hands of Burge and other Chicago officers in civil rights litigation and post-conviction proceedings. We continue that work to this day as People’s Law Office continues to fight for the freedom of police torture survivors who remain incarcerated and are now at serious risk due to COVID-19.

We are also grateful to have had the opportunity to work, build relationships and struggle alongside so many police torture survivors, their family members and other organizers.

This video, by Tom Callahan, is a small encapsulation of these decades of work. Click the link here.

PEOPLE’S LAW OFFICE REMAINS COMMITTED TO CLIENTS AND COMMUNITIES

Due to the CoronaVirus/Covid 19 pandemic, all of the staff at the People’s Law Office are working from our homes. We are operational and continue our zealous representation of our clients during this difficult time. There may, however, be a delay in our receiving USPS mail and deliveries and urge all to contact us by telephone or electronic mail if possible to assure the most prompt response.

We currently anticipate that this will continue to be the new normal through April 30th consistent with federal and state court closures as well as state and municipal orders.

During this unprecedented time, we wish health and safety to all and look forward to the day when we can again interact with each other in close proximity.

By: Flint Taylor

This article was initially published in InJustice Watch on March 11, 2020.

Just before the City of Chicago, apparently with Mayor Lightfoot’s blessing, took the Stanley Wrice case to trial last month, I wrote that it was still not too late for the city to offer a fair settlement to compensate Wrice for his brutal torture and coerced confession. The mayor stood, I wrote,  “at a legal and political crossroads; the question is whether she will stand with the torturers or torture victims. As lawyers like to say, ‘The jury is still out.’”

Ignoring history, the overwhelming evidence of systemic police torture, her own prior admissions and this warning, ship Lightfoot steamed ahead to trial with the officers represented by a team of five lawyers, four of whom were Andrew Hale and his coterie of private lawyers collecting handsome sums of additional “pinstripe patronage” at the taxpayer’s expense.

This crew, captained by Lightfoot’s handpicked Deputy Corporation Counsel Caryn Jacobs, set out to win the case at all costs, both financial and political, by slandering all six of the witnesses who averred that they had been tortured by Jon Burge henchmen John Byrne and Peter Dignan.

Preening around the courtroom they unabashedly attacked these torture survivors as a pack of liars, and took every opportunity to remind the jury that Wrice had confessed to participating in a brutal rape of a white woman — a charge that Wrice once again steadfastly denied during his testimony.

On the other hand, Dignan and Byrne chose not to sit through the trial, save for their appearance on the witness stand to take the Fifth Amendment when asked about their torture of Wrice and numerous other victims. Instead, their surrogate, Fraternal Order of Police Local 7 vice president Martin Preib, a close personal and political ally of Burge, Dignan, and Byrne, sat as their watchdog throughout the trial. Well before trial Preib had written a letter to Lightfoot on union stationary,  urging her  not to settle the case, claiming that the whole torture scandal was a hoax.

At the conclusion of the eight-day trial, the nine-person jury retired to deliberate late on March 2. Composed of seven women and two men, four of whom were of color, they selected a twenty-three-year old white woman as their foreperson. After approximately five hours of deliberation the following day,  the jury announced its verdict against the officers and for Wrice  on his coerced confession and conspiracy claims, and for the defense on the fabricated evidence claim. The damages award was most telling — $4 million in compensatory damages, and $600,000 apiece against Byrne and Dignan individually. The punitive damages award — extremely high in a police brutality case — spoke volumes about what the jury thought of Byrne and Dignan’s systemic conduct — a condemnation that was made despite the fact that Burge’s name could not be spoken before the jury.

So what does this verdict mean to the taxpayers? Instead of the two to four million that would have been a reasonable eve of trial settlement, (and one that would have been accepted if offered) the city now owes the four million dollars, plus the fees of Wrice attorney Jennifer Bonjean and her team. The City is held responsible for  those compensatory damages and fees, and – though state law forbids  it– has often ended up paying the punitive damages assessed against the officers And, of course, the City also owes the additional fees that Hale and company racked up trying the case.

So, instead of the $2-4 million an eve of trial settlement would have cost, the city now stands to owe more than $8 million in addition to the $2 million already paid in pinstripe patronage. And if the City decides to continue to fight this case the attorneys’ fees meter will continue to run.

Before the trial began a second set of taxpayer financed defense lawyers won a motion separating the case against the city, which rests on whether the torture was part of a pattern and practice, to be decided later. That case appears a slam dunk for Wrice and Bonjean because all they have to show is that the torture of Wrice by Byrne and Dignan was part of a policy and practice of torture that was conducted under the command of Burge — a practice that is now an uncontestable reality that City policymakers, most particularly Lightfoot, Rahm Emanuel, interim Superintendent Beck and the Chicago City Council have admitted, and a raft of federal and state courts have unequivocally affirmed. Lawyers (including the author) will be lining up to question these unquestionably material policymaking witnesses.

So Lightfoot is now not only confronted with a financial dilemma – – -whether to stop the unjustifiable bleeding of taxpayer money – – – but also whether she will now at last intervene to stop her lawyers from chasing the unconscionable agenda of the Fraternal Order of Police and own up to what she preached about Chicago police torture when she was a candidate for office.

The jury has spoken. Will Lightfoot?

By: Flint Taylor

This article was initially published in InJustice Watch on Feb. 14, 2020.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is poised to embark on defending two of the most notorious of Jon Burge’s midnight crew—former Chicago Police Sergeant John Byrne and Detective Peter Dignan—in a federal lawsuit brought on behalf of 65-year-old Stanley Wrice, whom they are alleged to have tortured and sent to prison for more than three decades.

Barring an unexpected last minute settlement, the trial will open next Thursday in U.S. District Court Judge Harry D. Leinenweber’s courtroom, where Managing Deputy Corporation Counsel Caryn Jacobs and Andrew Hale, a private lawyer who has been paid $1.5 million to date for his work on the case, will try to convince a jury that Byrne and Dignan did not torture Wrice in the bowels of Area 2 Chicago Police Headquarters in 1982.

For 30 years, since the civil rights case of torture victim Andrew Wilson went to trial, the city’s lawyers in past administrations had eschewed efforts to reasonably settle torture claims, making the refusal in Wrice’s case especially striking.

Wrice was picked up with several co-defendants on Sept. 9, 1982, for the alleged rape of a white woman the previous day and taken to Area 2, where they all claimed to have been serially tortured by Byrne and Dignan.

While handcuffed in a cell, Wrice alleges, he was repeatedly beaten with a long metal flashlight and a rubber nightstick—a trademark of the torturers—about the head, arms, legs, and genitals before he gave a confession. Medical evidence fully supports his injuries.

Three of the others picked up with him also say they were beaten with the same rubber nightstick, while one was also subjected to another of Byrne and Dignan’s favorite tactics—simulated suffocation with a plastic bag. Racist taunts allegedly accompanied this wanton brutality and one of the men was threatened with hanging, told — using a pejorative — that other black men had been hung, and threatened to kill him if they ever saw him in a white neighborhood.

Before Judge Leinenweber, Byrne and Dignan no doubt once again will invoke the Fifth Amendment when asked whether they tortured Wrice, his co-defendants, and other African American men known to have been similarly tortured. Their silence can be held against them, as should prior findings of several courts, including the Illinois Supreme Court, and a Cook County special prosecutor, that Byrne and Dignan’s midnight crew was the engine that drove the pattern and practice of police torture at Area 2.

When Wrice was finally exonerated in 2013 after 31 years behind bars, presiding Judge Richard Walsh specifically found that Byrne and Dignan committed perjury at Wrice’s criminal trial when they denied torturing him and his associates.

In the last five years Lori Lightfoot, re-inventing herself as a police reform advocate, has herself made some strong statements about the Burge torture scandal and the police code of silence.

In 2016, the Police Accountability Task Force, which Lightfoot chaired, unequivocally stated “from 1972 to 1991, CPD detective and commander Jon Burge and others he supervised tortured and abused at least 100 African-Americans on the South and West sides in attempts to coerce confessions.”

Wrice and his associates are important members of that group of torture survivors and Byrne and Dignan lead the group of “others he supervised.”

After Burge died in September 2018, then mayoral candidate Lightfoot stated that “with the passing of Jon Burge, we must reflect on the dark legacy that he embodied, so many lives shattered, and a horrible stain on the legitimacy of policing that resonates today.”

And less than a month ago she stood with her interim police superintendent, Charlie Beck, who invoked the “horrific actions” of Burge and his crew as a “tipping point” that “resulted in a huge loss of trust and confidence by the community in their police departments. … even more dramatically, there’s a human cost.”

Nonetheless, in what appears to be a decision that smacks of blatant hypocrisy, Lightfoot’s handpicked lawyers stand ready to defend the indefensible.

Hale, who was sanctioned by former Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo for  misconduct in a previous torture trial, stands to make another million on the Wrice case, in addition to the $1.5 million he has already received.

In all, over the years, the city has paid Hale more than $30 million for defending police misconduct cases, including those against his publicly professed heroes—Burge and his “right hand men,” Byrne and Dignan.

Unlike the torture survivors who have obtained $6 to $10 million dollar settlements from the city, Wrice has not received a certificate of innocence from the Cook County Courts. In the past 15 years, prior administrations have settled those cases where guilt or innocence is not thus resolved, in the $2 million to $4 million range.

That seems fair here. If the case is tried, upwards of $4 million will have been spent defending the indefensible, Wrice and several of his fellow torture survivors will have been revictimized, and Mayor Lightfoot’s strong statements condemning the dark history of police torture will be exposed as a sham, designed to curry political favor.

She stands at a legal and political crossroads; the question is whether she will stands with the torturers or torture victims. As lawyers like to say, “The jury is still out.”

On Friday, January 10, 2020, Cook County Judge Sophia Hall denied the Mayor’s Office bid to withhold over 400 documents concerning the creation of the Joint Public Safety Academy (“Cop Academy”), on Chicago’s West Side. The decision was issued in FOIA litigation brought by Debbie Southorn and Erin Glasco, the plaintiffs and organizers with #NoCopAcademy campaign, filed in the spring of 2018.

Southorn and Glasco previously filed several FOIA requests seeking information regarding Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plans to build the Cop Academy in West Garfield Park, estimated to cost over $95 million, which many believe is wholly unnecessary and will not decrease police violence that destroys the lives of scores of Black and Latinx people in Chicago. The original decision to create the Cop Academy was shrouded in secrecy without any public input as to whether it should be built and where it should be located.

In describing why they brought the lawsuit, Plaintiff Southorn said, “From the outset, Mayor Emanuel engaged in extensive planning and preparation to build this police academy without consulting the residents of the West side or Chicago.  We filed the lawsuit to get all the plans he refused to disclose so that the civilians of Chicago can have all the necessary information to evaluate whether their taxpayer funds should be used to build a police academy or whether their money is better spent on school, mental health and other social services desperately needed on Chicago’s West side.”

The Mayor’s Office argued the documents, including those pertaining to public messaging about the Cop Academy, were protected from disclosure by the “deliberative process privilege.” The People’s Law Office, representing Southorn, Glasco and the #NoCopAcdemy campaign, argued that the bulk of the documents were not protected from disclosure because the materials were generated after Mayor Emanuel made the ultimate decision to build the Cop Academy, and therefore, were not deliberative of his decision to build it. To date, the Mayor’s Office has refused to disclose when Mayor Emanuel decided to build the Cop Academy. 

After months of litigation and several oral arguments, Judge Sophia Hall ruled that Mayor Emanuel was the final decision maker regarding whether to create the Cop Academy and materials withheld by the Office of the Mayor after he made the decision to build the Academy must be disclosed.  Judge Hall’s ruling affirmed #NoCopAcademy’s argument that “the Mayor’s role was to make a decision as to whether to pursue the construction of the JPSTA [Cop Academy].  The Mayor’s Office announcement in the July 3, 2017 Press Release reflected the Mayor’s Office’s decision to build the JPSTA [cop academy].”

This is a win for #NoCopAcademy activists fighting for transparency around how decisions happen in the city of Chicago, and setting the historical record straight.  We look forward to reviewing the newly released documents and continuing to support those who organize for investment in youth and communities, not expanded investments in policing.   Read the decision: here.

Southorn, Glasco and the #NoCopAcademy campaign are represented by Joey Mogul, Ben Elson and Christian Snow of the People’s Law Office.

Yesterday, the Illinois Appellate Court rendered its decision in the Jackie Wilson police torture case. Affirming Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks’ 119 page decision in which he found that Wilson was tortured into giving a confession, the Court remanded the case for a new trial. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Lavin, the Court recognized that the evidence told  a “morbid tale of improper law enforcement,” and condemned the Special Prosecutors’ who appealed Hooks’ ruling as displaying a “stunning level of denial about the well-established practice of torture in Area 2 and findings of torture by the special prosecutors’ own predecessors.” Wilson was and is represented by Flint Taylor, John Stainthorp and Christian Snow of the People’s Law Office and Elliot Slosar of the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project.

Read the opinion Here.