FBI releases files in CPD Commander Jon Burge torture investigation

CHICAGO - The FBI has released records from the probe in to torture allegations against disgraced Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.

He and his detectives are accused of torturing hundreds of suspects from 1972 to 1991.

More than 300 pages were released this week from the FBI, including part of a 1991 Civil Rights investigation into Burge and the allegations he tortured people into confessions. One man told the FBI while burger was questioning him, he played Russian roulette with his revolver.

"He left one bullet in the cylinder and spun it,” the man told the FBI. Burge then said, “You will talk or I’ll blow your black (expletive) brains out.”

The man explained to the FBI that Burge put the revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger. Then, Burge wrapped a vinyl typewriter cover over his head to suffocate him until he passed out.

The report also includes dozens of news articles compiled by the FBI at the time outlining the allegations, including "electric shock, beating on the bottoms of feet and genitals, and racially motivated verbal abuse and death threats.”

In a letter from the People’s Law Office who represented alleged Burge victims at the time, the attorneys told the then-police superintendent that Burge was making public threats to quote “blow the People’s Law Office away with a shotgun” if anything happens to him during an internal investigation.

Burge was fired in 1993 and in 2010 was charged with lying about torturing suspects to get confessions. He served four-and-a-half years in prison and died in 2018.