Long Arm of the Law

On Nov. 2, 1983, as Darrell Cannon recalls it, he was forced to lie down in the back of the detective's car. "That's when they pulled my pants and shorts down," he said, and applied the electric cattle prod to his testicles.

"I felt like I was on fire," says Cannon. "I screamed so hard I was hoarse."

Cannon says the pain finally became so unbearable that he confessed—falsely—to driving a car involved in a murder case. He spent 24 years in prison before being freed in 2006, after prosecutors dismissed the charges against him in connection with a suit he filed alleging that he was tortured by detectives at the infamous Area 2 unit on Chicago's South Side.

The commander of that unit was Jon Burge, a man whose name has long been linked to allegations of police brutality but who has gone uncharged for more than two decades—until earlier this month.

"Those guys who tortured me … it was Burge who taught them," claims Cannon.

Burge, 60, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago to charges of lying to authorities in connection with torture cases. He had been arrested Oct. 21 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice at his retirement home near Tampa, Fla.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, noting that Burge was charged with lying, rather than torture, has made it clear he believes the former commander is responsible for heinous acts. He likened the indictment to the prosecution of the gangster Al Capone. "If Al Capone went down for taxes," Fitzgerald told reporters, "it's better than him going down for nothing."

In the 1980s, it was scarcely a secret in Chicago that many a criminal suspect would go in for questioning with police and come out looking like he had been the loser in a boxing match. It was just another reminder that it was foolhardy to tangle with the Chicago police.

Investigations into allegations of torture have found evidence that police used typewriter covers to suffocate suspects and applied electric cattle prods to the genitals of suspects.
The abuses at Area 2 played a central role in the emptying of Illinois's death row by former governor George Ryan. Pointing to evidence of police brutality, Ryan freed four death-row inmates. Ryan, himself now serving a prison sentence for corruption, also commuted to life the sentences of all those sentenced to death row, saying there were too many doubts stirred by the methods of interrogation.

In Chicago, crowds gathered outside the Federal Building to call out for justice for Burge. Some demonstrators chanted, "Jon Burge should do time." He was released on $250,000 bond. Judge Joan Lefkow set the trial date for May 11.