The initiative, approved by the city council in May 2015, is designed to address wrongs perpetrated in one of the nation’s longest-running police brutality scandals. For almost two decades, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge led a crew of officers who tortured more than 125 individuals — most of them Black — into confessing crimes that many say they did not commit.
The $5.5 million reparations package included: a formal apology from former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, financial compensation to survivors and their families, waived tuition to City Colleges, a mandatory Chicago Public Schools curriculum to educate students about police torture under Burge, and the creation of a permanent, public memorial.
Read more here.
