Chicago, IL – On the morning of Monday, December 2, about 30 demonstrators, led by survivors of wrongful convictions and their loved ones, gathered in below-freezing temperatures outside the downtown Chicago office of incoming Cook County State's Attorney Eileen Burke to demand she free torture survivors and the wrongfully convicted.

Speakers gave testimony, chanted, and held signs that reinforced their demands. Burke has a lot of work to do to keep up with her predecessor Kim Foxx, who freed over 300 survivors of wrongful conviction and police torture during her eight years in office.

“Our wrongfully convicted loved ones should not have to spend another holiday in these god-forsaken slave ships called prisons,” said Jasmine Smith, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance. “Eileen Burke could free them with a stroke of her pen!”

During the program, the family and loved ones of currently incarcerated survivors, including Tamon Russell, Ramon Banks and Devon Showers, spoke. In addition, formerly incarcerated survivors of wrongful conviction spoke or were in attendance, including Mark Clements, David Lincoln, Cordell Williams, Dante Brown, and Kevin Jackson – who was only just released in September. Kevin Jackson won his freedom in court after two decades behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Jackson was wrongfully convicted by now-retired Sargeant Brian Forgberg, alongside Detective Kevin Eberle and John Foster.

Those three detectives are responsible for the wrongful incarceration of dozens of other survivors who are still fighting for their freedom, including Rico Clark, Lester Owens and Douglas Livingston. Despite these crimes, Foster remains on the force as the commander of Area 5, and Eberle was promoted to become the head of the FBI task force on public safety.

On her final day in office, former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx affirmed the role of the movement during her tenure when she said, “The ability to have sustained change outside of an election year comes from that movement push.”

The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and its allies intend to continue this fight until all torture survivors and the wrongfully convicted are free.

#ChicagoIL #ChicagoAlliance #CAARPR #KimFoxx #torturesurvivors #wrongfulincarceration

Chicago, IL – 75 people assembled outside of the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, September 30. One of the leaders of the protest was Jasmine Smith, a young firebrand organizer with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). Smith shouted into a well-worn megaphone, “What do we want?” The crowd roared back, “Justice!”

Demonstrations directed at Foxx have increased ever since she announced that she would not be seeking re-election at the end of the year. In 2016, Foxx campaigned for the job of the top prosecutor on a campaign slogan, “Chicago is the wrongful conviction capital of the United States!” The slogan she coined was in response to the legacy of Commander Jon Burge, whose “Midnight Crew” tortured hundreds of people – mostly young Black men – into signing false confessions in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Since becoming the first Black woman to lead the county’s prosecutor office in 2017, Kim Foxx has vacated more than 300 wrongful conviction cases. The Chicago Alliance, Chicago Torture Justice Center (CTJC), and Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & Solidarity (MAMAS) have been intensifying their efforts to push Foxx to vacate more cases before the end of her tenure.

In the words of Smith, “Kim Foxx, we telling you to leave with a bang and free as many men as you can before you walk out that door!”

“There is no reason for anybody to be sitting in prison on the credibility of officers who have pled the fifth about torture multiple times” said Clayborn Smith, a recently exonerated survivor of wrongful conviction who was tortured by Burge and his underlings.

Other survivors and families of men and women who are currently wrongfully incarcerated and fighting for their freedom made up much of the protest. The coalition of organizations, survivors and families brought with them a list of demands for Foxx, which included a list of credible cases of wrongful conviction for her office to review immediately and cease prosecution of (reproduced below).

Later that day, the State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) held a Wrongful Conviction Day event where community members were able to write questions on index cards in the hopes of having Foxx answer them. While Foxx admitted to feeling the pressure from the movement, she made it clear that her resources were limited, and that additional governmental support would be needed to tackle the monumental task of reviewing all wrongful conviction cases in Cook County.

Foxx was adamant that she would not be able to pull off another mass exoneration like she did in 2022 with arrests that happened under ex-Chicago Police Sergeant Ronald Watts and ex-Officer Reynaldo Guevara. Those mass exonerations, she claimed, were possible due to clear patterns of abuse and misconduct by the officers.

But Guevara and Watts were not the only officers with clear patterns of misconduct. CAARPR supports half a dozen survivors of retired Sergeant Brian P. Forberg, a corrupt officer with almost three dozen similar complaints of coercion, abuse and misconduct, and over a dozen wrongful convictions.

In 2022 it was revealed that Forberg was married to an Assistant State's Attorney in the Conviction Integrity Unit in the SAO, responsible for reviewing cases with post-conviction appeals and determining their credibility. It is likely that she was making decisions on the same cases that Forberg had investigated. The clear conflict of interest resulted in a scandal with legal consequences in one of his cases, namely that of Kevin Jackson. Foxx’s office stopped prosecuting Jackson.

Forberg and his partners Kevin Eberle and Detective John Foster have all been shown to be engaged in abusive behavior, coercing witnesses to testify falsely against innocent men and women. With over a dozen known cases of wrongful conviction under his belt, there is likely enough evidence of “pattern” for a mass exoneration of his survivors such as Kevin Jackson and Rico Clark, another high profile case.

Burge and the Midnight Crew represent the first and second generation of torture cops in Chicago. Now, officers like Forberg, Eberle and Foster represent the third generation of torture cops, whose tactics have changed from torturing suspects to now coercing witnesses to testify against suspects. Third generation torture cop patterns and practices are often exemplified in cases with no physical evidence and which rely solely on officer and witness testimony, although usually the witnesses recant at trial, citing coercion by officers.

At her Wrongful Conviction Day event, Kim Foxx agreed that corrupt judges, prosecutors and police officers need to be held accountable, and that the movement must keep up the pressure from now up to and beyond December 1 when she leaves office, echoing a point made at the rally earlier in the day by Joe Iosbaker of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. “Kim Foxx exonerated over 300 men and some women, and this movement made it possible for her to do that. No! It made it necessary!”

The coalition’s full demands below:

Move to vacate convictions and cease opposition of post-conviction petitions for people who were convicted based on testimony obtained through police torture, abuse and coercion. Specific people include, but are not limited to:

Antonio Porter

Michael Carter

Tamon Russell

Michaeil Ward

Matthew Echevarria

Robert Ornelas

Christopher Neal

Abdul Malik Muhhamad

Darrell Fair

Johnny Plummer

Clayborn Smith

Kilroy Watkins

Duel Thomas

Lester Owens

Rico Clark

Andre Mosley

Douglas Livingston

Donald Bates (Donald Haywood)

Hananiah Dukes

Elias Gomez

Gilberto Vargas

Kevin Jackson

Walter Thompson

Antoine Smith

Dashauna Gardener

Darnell Grigsby

Micheal Key

Taniko Boyd

Jaber Wilson

Jerome Golden

Eric Smith

Calvin Craig

Artez Thigpen

Billy Anderson

Devon Showers

Dismiss pending charges against

Ramon Banks

Jason Johnson

Lorenzo Williams

Coordinate with relevant offices to put in motion expedited and guaranteed access to conviction expungement and certificates of innocence for people who were convicted based on testimony obtained through police torture, abuse and coercion.

Publicly acknowledge & address the United Nations mandate (Ref.: AL USA 7/2024) issued in May 2024. This was included & outlined in correspondence delivered to you by MAMAS in July, and again by members of the press in September, 2024, and is available to read online at bit.ly/UNcpdTorture.

#ChicagoIL #IL #InJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #WrongfullyConvicted #TortureSurvivors #CAARPR #NAARPR #CFIST #MAMAS