The Chicago City Council on Wednesday unanimously voted to approve a historic $5.5 million reparations fund for torture victims of the notorious Chicago police Commander Jon Burge and his so-called midnight crew of rogue detectives.

2015/5/6-“This is another step, but an essential step, in righting a wrong — removing a stain,” MayorRahm Emanuel said of the reparations fund that he backed and advocates say is the first of its kind in the nation. “Chicago has finally confronted it’s past and come to terms with it and recognizing something wrong was done.”

The vote came after an emotional debate in which some of Burge’s victims looked on from the gallery in council chambers.

Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, chairman of the council’s African-American caucus, noted that approval was a longtime in coming.”We have shown today that that type of abhorrent behavior will not be tolerated in our city,” Brookins said.

“Does it totally make up for what happened?” asked Ald. Joe Moore, 49th. “Absolutely not. But it’s a powerful statement.”

While Emanuel hopes the fund closes “the Burge book on the city’s history,” it’s likely dozens of additional potential victims will come forward to claim they were tortured at the hands of Burge and his associates.

The ordinance under consideration also includes a formal apology and states that the city “wishes” to provide other benefits to more than 50 torture victims and their families that “may include” free City Colleges tuition, various types of counseling, job training and placement and senior services.

The deal also would create a permanent memorial recognizing the victims and ensure that eighth- and 10th-grade students attending Chicago Public Schools would be taught about the Burge case and its legacy, cementing the scandal’s role in city history. Between early 1972 and late 1991, Burge and his men allegedly tortured confessions out of scores of mostly African-American South Side using electric shocks, beatings, smotherings and simulated Russian roulette.

The Burge vote came at the council’s final meeting of its term Wednesday. The packed agenda also will feature the pomp and circumstance of Gov. Bruce Rauner coming to address the body and Archbishop Blase Cupich taking part in a memorial to Cardinal Francis George.

With inauguration festivities set for May 18 to swear in a new City Council that could include 13 new members, depending on the results of an election recount on the Far Southeast Side, Wednesday’s meeting is the final chance for the current body to wrap up pending business before the slate gets wiped clean and legislation has to be re-introduced. So the agenda is full of proposals aldermen hoped to get passed before then.

Still to come is the unusual appearance of a sitting governor at the council, as Republican Rauner comes to talk to the 50 Democratic aldermen about his “turnaround agenda” for Illinois.

Rauner’s pro-business, anti-union positions have made him far from popular at City Hall, and the Chicago Federation of Labor announced it would hold a news conference near council chambers after the governor’s speech “to discuss the negative impact Governor Rauner’s agenda will have on working families across Chicago and the state.”

Aldermen will also honor George, who died April 17 at age 78 after years of treatment for cancer. George, who retired last year, was the first native Chicagoan to serve as archbishop. Aldermen gave him the Chicago Medal of Merit in December, and he talked at the council meeting about the special identity Chicagoans have “once you get past all the stories about gangsters and all the boosterism.”

Cupich, who succeeded George as the head of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese, is set to give the invocation at Wednesday’s meeting and take part in the memorial.

source: The Chicago Tribune

Hal Dardick and John Byrne