Jon Burge Arrested, Charged with Perjury and Obstruction

By Karl Klockars in News on Oct 21, 2008 4:32PM

Former police commander Jon Burge, whose name has become synonymous in this city with police torture, was arrested this morning at his home in Tampa, Florida. He's been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, charges which carry decades of jail time if Burge is convicted.

Burge was fired in 1993 and has been living in Florida collecting his CPD pension, and Burge has never been charged with any crime - until now. After last year's $20 million judgement from the city to settle four cases, four aldermen sent a letter to Federal attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to prosecute Burge for torture. Now it seems that Fitzgerald has followed through.

Rather than try to give a thumbnail history of the Jon Burge saga in Chicago, we'll just direct you to the archive of exhaustive, comprehensive and excellent coverage that John Conroy did for the Chicago Reader, located here.