Judge forces cop to testify in Burge trial (burge EVIL chicago cop)

May 7, 2010

BY NATASHA KORECKI AND FRANK MAIN Staff Reporters

A former Chicago Police detective who allegedly witnessed former Cmdr. Jon Burge play "Russian roulette" with a suspect and put a typewriter cover over the man's head is expected to be a key prosecution witness in Burge's upcoming trial, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Michael McDermott, considered part of Burge's inner circle and accused of torturing criminal suspects himself, was forced by a judge to break a generations-long blue wall of silence and testify about what he knew while working under Burge.

"It's been an unbroken wall of solidarity with Mr. Burge. Nobody has been willing to break ranks," civil attorney Jon Loevy said. Loevy has represented alleged torture victims. "It would be the first time that any Chicago Police officer has spoken, to my knowledge, under oath, about what actually happened in Area 2 under the alleged abuses."

McDermott's testimony could be among the most damning in Burge's perjury and obstruction of justice trial, which begins later this month. Burge isn't charged with abusing suspects but with lying about the abuse in civil lawsuits alleging torture took place under his watch.

McDermott, who appears on the prosecution's publicly filed witness list, was forced to testify before the grand jury investigating Burge and is expected to testify under a grant of immunity at Burge's trial, McDermott's lawyer, Patrick Deady, said Thursday.

McDermott's testimony would break ranks with dozens of white officers who served with Burge in Area 2 and previously invoked their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent after they were subpoenaed in lawsuits filed by men alleging they were tortured. Several African-American detectives who were not an integral part of Burge's crew have talked to investigators in the past.... snip

more at http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2246254,CST-NWS-burge07.article



burge pretty much singlehandedly brought about the IL moratorium on the death penalty. (Well lots of people put in hard work for it but the tortured false confessions of people on death row pushed the issue.

Not innocent due to some technicality. They were INNOCENT.

Yet we still have goofballs celebrating when someone is executed.

Hope the celebrants don't find themselves innocent and on death row some day.

Don