Posts Tagged ‘Robert Boyle’

Torture probe expands to cops under his command

BY CAROL MARIN AND DON MOSELEY | SUN-TIMES/NBC CHICAGO

Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge faces trial next month on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice linked to police brutality.(AP)

A new federal grand jury has been impaneled to expand the investigation of allegations of police torture under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge, the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5 News have learned.

The grand jury is investigating what was commonly referred to as the “Midnight Crew,” officers who worked for Burge, according to a source.

This comes as federal prosecutors ready their case against Burge. The aging detective commander is set to go on trial May 6, charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

None of the officers under Burge’s command has ever been charged in connection with the torture allegations. The new grand jury may decide whether that time has finally come.

Burge and his detectives have always maintained they mistreated no one.

But according to attorney Flint Taylor, Burge was the ringleader of a band of seven or eight officers that operated out of Area 2 in the 1970s and ’80s.

They were called the “Midnight Crew” because of the hours they worked.

“Under the cover of darkness and the fact that there were relatively few of them, they could do what other detectives felt they couldn’t get away with, and that is torture people,” Taylor said. “And you just have case after case under them of baggings, of electric shock, of mock executions in the ’80s which was the heyday of the Midnight Crew.” (more…)