The city of Chicago has begun paying out $5.5 million in reparations to victims of police torture during the 1970s and 1980s, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday.
In May, the city agreed to pay 57 people, mostly blacks, who had been tortured by police during the era while in custody, Reuters reports. The police commander of the period, Jon Burge, was eventually fired and convicted of lying about the use of torture during later civil suits.
“We stand together as a city to try and right those wrongs, and to bring this dark chapter of Chicago’s history to a close,” Emanuel said in a statement.
The mayor has faced calls for his resignation amidst ongoing racially charged protests over police violence against blacks. An officer who shot a black teenager 16 times in 2014 was charged with murder in November after video of the encounter was released to the public. The U.S. Department of Justice is also currently investigating the Chicago Police Department’s use of deadly force.
[Reuters]
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