The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago

by Flint Taylor

Overview

With his colleagues at the People’s Law Office (PLO), Taylor has argued landmark civil rights cases that have exposed corruption and cover-ups within the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and throughout the city’s corrupt political machine.

The Torture Machine takes the reader from the 1969 murders of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark—and the historic, thirteen-years of litigation that followed—through the dogged pursuit of commander Jon Burge, the leader of a torture ring within the CPD that used barbaric methods, including electric shock, to elicit false confessions from suspects.

Joining forces with community activists, torture survivors and their families, other lawyers, and local reporters, Taylor and the PLO gathered evidence from multiple cases to bring suit against the CPD officers and the City of Chicago. As the struggle expanded beyond the torture scandal to the ultimately successful campaign to end the death penalty in Illinois, and obtained reparations for many of the torture survivors, it set human rights precedents that have since been adopted across the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642594690
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	556
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Flint Taylor is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago. He is one of the lawyers for the families of slain Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, has represented many survivors of Chicago police torture over the past 30 years and is counsel in several illegal search and wrongful death cases brought against the Milwaukee Police Department.

Table of Contents

1 Murder by Darkness: The Assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark 1

2 The Wilson Case: And He Just Kept on Cranking and Cranking … 35

3 Street Files and Important Trials 52

4 The First Wilson Civil Rights Trial 65

5 The Cover-Up Begins to Unravel 87

6 Déjà Vu 103

7 The Fight for Justice Broadens 135

8 Out of the Court and into the Streets 148

9 Fire Burge! 159

10 Burge on Trial Again 175

11 A Parade and an Appeal 194

12 The Vigilante, Aaron Patterson, and a Judgment against Burge 203

13 The Marcus Wiggins Case: "They're Supposed to Serve and Protect, Right?" 212

14 Decisions, Decisions 221

15 And It Seemed Like They Blew My Brains Out 234

16 Those Idiots from the People's Law Office 245

17 A Landmark Victory, a Plea, and a Tragedy 268

18 Special Prosecutors, Clemencies, and Pardons 280

19 Free at Last 293

20 Freedom Denied 302

21 An Open Secret 313

22 The Daley Show 322

23 Broadening the Struggle against Police Torture 326

24 The Tale of Two Reports 333

25 Beyond All Reasonable Doubt 344

26 The Art of the No Deal 360

27 Hearings, Hearings, and More Hearings 370

28 The Feds Come Marching In 382

29 The Worm Turns 393

30 Exonerations 402

31 Burge in the Dock 410

32 A Modicum of Justice 426

33 Daley the Defendant 438

34 On What Planet … 453

35 Reparations Now! 460

36 Never Before in America 473

37 Coming Full Circle 482

38 Wilson Walks 496

Epilogue 508

Acknowledgments 511

Index 516

Editorial Reviews

12/17/2018

In this harrowing story of abuse and courage, Taylor, an attorney and advocate for victims of police violence, recounts how Chicago police—led by the late Jon Burge, a commander in the police department who was fired in 1993—tortured roughly 120 black men into confessing (often falsely) to crimes in the 1970s and ’80s. Taylor argues that there was a pattern of torture and that city officials, attorneys, and judges all shielded the perpetrators from discipline through institutionalized subterfuge and a police code of silence. Taylor and others got commuted sentences for victims who had been sentenced to death based solely on confessions extracted during torture, worked toward the eventual abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, and won settlements for many of the victims whose lives were spent in prison. After 30 years of legal battles for the rights of the tortured, overwhelming evidence and public opinion put pressure on the Chicago city government to admit to the torture and cover-ups and finally offer reparations to those targeted. This is sometimes difficult to read, due to the descriptions of brutal treatment, but Taylor writes with conviction and empathy, and the events covered will be of interest to audiences concerned with the history of police brutality and activism against oppression. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"If it was not for Flint Taylor I would still be languishing in prison. He brought hope to a hopeless place." —Darrell Cannon, Torture survivor

"It is impossible to fully understand the continuing challenges created by unjustifiable police violence against black and brown people without appreciating the historical backdrop that sustains this national crisis. Flint Taylor's powerful new book, informed by his decades as one of the most effective advocates addressing these issues, is a must read." —Bryan Stevenson, best-selling author of Just Mercy

"Taylor is a walking passcode to CPD misconduct. It was Taylor and his colleagues who unearthed the crimes committed by the “Midnight Crew,” a squad of racist cops who tortured blacks to extract their false confessions." —Rolling Stone

"Taylor's The Torture Machine is a sad but necessary reminder of how citizens can be victimized by those who are supposed to protect them and how that abuse can poison entire neighborhoods. But it is also a story of a hard-won hope that resulted in some degree of justice for victims and an effort to remind children of what once happened in the hope that it won't be repeated. The book is a chronicle of tenacity and hope alongside brutality and injustice, and in that way it is a profoundly Chicago story." —Psychology Today

"[A] searing memoir... essential reading for all who care about this country—past and future." —Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Blood in the Water

"Incredible and devastating." —Jeremy Scahill

"If you want to understand what actually happened to those Jon Burge tortured read this book. " —Anthony Holmes, Torture survivor

"[Torture Machine] is a riveting account...a forensic analysis of decades of collusion between judges, politicians, prosecutors and the police to engage in systemic human rights violations." —Juan Gonzalez

"[A] harrowing tale...Taylor illuminates in graphic detail the scars caused by some of the worst elements of law enforcement in a city perpetually beset by violence." —Kirkus

"Harrowing...Taylor writes with conviction and empathy." —Publishers Weekly

"[A] compelling book...." — Booklist, Starred Review

"This book is a powerful testament to their courage and determination and is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand what can happen when those in power condone violations of civil and constitutional rights for political expediency." —Mary E. Howell, Civil Rights Attorney

"A stunning, sweeping history of police violence in Chicago, and Flint Taylor's lifelong pursuit of racial justice. Quite literally the work of a lifetime." —Alison Flowers, Author of Exoneree Diaries: The Fight for Innocence, Independence, and Identity

"[A]n indispensable and searing account of the barbarous regime of policing under Jon Burge, and the ongoing fight for justice." —Martha Biondi, author of To Stand and Fight. James Thindwa, Labor Activist and Board Member, In These Times.

"[A]n unsparing dissection of foundational racism in the criminal justice system ... It could not be more timely." —Jaime Kalven, Investigative Reporter, Executive Director, Invisible Institute

"Each victim's case is a fascinating story in itself while the totality of the lawyers' efforts fighting a resistant establishment is staggering." —The Observer

From the Publisher

2018-12-19

A founding partner of the Chicago-based People's Law Office recounts his career fighting on behalf of victims of police malfeasance, especially torture and wrongful death.

"If the torture machine teaches one lesson above all, it is that torture is as American as apple pie," writes Taylor, whose long career is a catalog of hard-fought battles for racial justice waged in Chicago's courtrooms. In this personal narrative, Taylor offers no introductions or preludes, plunging straight into the heart of the beast: a morass of police corruption and conspiracy dating back to the December 1969 assassinations of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Discussing his arrival on the scene of what authorities were selling as a police raid gone wrong, the author writes, "shock and grief soon met with the dawning realization that the police claims of a shootout were bold-faced lies. We were looking at a murder scene." Thus begins the harrowing tale of the author's 13-year crusade with the PLO "to uncover and expose the truth about that murderous raid." The author also chronicles the next three decades spent seeking justice for survivors of a conspiracy of brutal torture carried out by police during their investigations. Sparing no details, Taylor reveals the police force's reign of terror and the Gestapo-like interrogation tactics administered by Lt. Jon Burge and his squad of "confederates." For 20 years, using a variety of tactics, including suffocation, pistol-whipping, and electric shock—all under a cloak of secrecy—Burge and company beat confessions from dozens of victims. The author uncovers stories of secret files, a code of silence among police officers, and complicity among politicians, and he shows how he and the PLO worked for years to free prisoners whose incarcerations were based on torture confessions while winning "more than $35,000,000 in settlements, verdicts, and reparations for more than sixty torture survivors."

Taylor illuminates in graphic detail the scars caused by some of the worst elements of law enforcement in a city perpetually beset by violence.

Kirkus Reviews