State Crime Reports

Victims of Police Crimes Demand That Alvarez Either Make Radical Changes in Her Department or Resign


CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2012. Victims of crimes committed by Chicago Police, and their family members, 27 in all, have demanded that Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez either adopt major reforms to her department of resign.  In an open letter to Alvarez they cite 15 instances of cases of police crimes, including murder, torture, and the refusal of Alvarez to acknowledge serious problems in her office.

They will deliver an “an open letter charging State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez with being a persecutor of the people instead of a prosecutor for the people” to her office at 69 W. Washington, Suite 3200, today at 3:00 pm.

The measures urged by the letter’s signers include that her office investigate and prosecute the police officers who murdered Flint Farmer, Rekia Boyd, Dakota Bright, and many other people and that she drop all opposition to evidentiary hearings for all people who were convicted on the basis of confessions or testimony extracted by police through torture.

“If you are unwilling to implement these proposals, we urge you to resign and call for a special election for a new State’s Attorney,” the signers say.

The letter was put together by the Organizing Committee to Stop Police Crimes of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.  The complete letter is follows.

Anita Alvarez

Cook County State’s Attorney

69 W. Washington Suite 3200

Chicago IL 60602-3174

December 12, 2012

We, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and our task force, designated the Organizing Committee to Stop Police Crimes, in this open letter and/or communiqué to the Cook County State’s Attorney do hereby make the following charges and demands:

We Charge That:

1. You were elected to be the peoples prosecutor but you have earned a reputation as “prosecutor and persecutor of the people,” instead of doing the job you are sworn to perform as the prosecutor on behalf of the people. You have zealously harassed, persecuted and prosecuted African American and Latino men and women and innocent peace activists. Yet you have done nothing to bring to justice the Chicago Police executioners of innocent Black men and women and have rebuffed their families.

2. You appeared on national television (“60 Minutes,” December 9, 2012, http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50136707n) and proclaimed that men who have been exonerated of heinous crimes are still guilty in your opinion, even though you personally admit your office did not examine the evidence. You have spun most outrageous theories of how “it could happen” that those proven innocent could still be guilty.

3. You have done nothing to bring to justice the murderer of Rekia Boyd, an off-duty police officer Dante Servin. Boyd was an innocent bystander and was killed on March 22, 2012 when Servin shot at Antonio Cross, who was also unarmed and innocent of any wrongdoing.

4. You have done nothing to bring to justice Police Officer Gildardo Sierra, the murderer of Flint Farmer. Sierra was video recorded shooting the unarmed Farmer three times in the back as he lay face down and wounded on the ground. You have told news media the FBI is looking into the case; why aren’t you? Murder is a state crime.

5. You have done nothing to prosecute the police who killed Dakota Bright, Marquise Sampson, and countless other young African Americans.

6. You twice prosecuted and then imprisoned former police officer Howard Morgan, whom police tried to kill shooting him 28 times, for attempted murder, when the only material non-police evidence clearly established he was a victim of attempted murder by the police and a jury found that he had not fired a gun at anyone.

7. You have done nothing to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Area Two Lockup “suicides” of Develt Bradford and Melvin Woods shortly after midnight, when the constant video surveillance cameras were mysteriously turned off.

8. You resisted prosecuting Richard J. Vanecko in the 2004 murder of David Koschman and participated in the cover-up of the crime because Vanecko was a nephew of your former boss, Richard M. Daley.

9. You have done nothing to prosecute the detectives who brutally beat Matthew Clark et al. almost three years ago and the other officers who attempted to cover up the assault. You have refused to release the names of these officers or their duty status.

10. You have tolerated and encouraged the use of police agents provocateur who fomented violence and sought to entrap 5 innocent activists protesting the NATO military organization in Chicago last summer.

11. You have tolerated and even cooperated with reckless endangerment of youth when police have colluded with known criminal elements. Police car videos have documented that police pick up and drop off young Black men in neighborhoods of rival gangs, deliberately placing their lives in danger. You have not investigated these links between some police officers and organized criminal elements that terrorize Black and Latino communities.

12. You have done nothing to begin to unwind the convictions of over 100 men who were tortured by Chicago Police into making false confessions, seeking their release from prison and their exoneration.

13. You have prosecuted Chris Drew and Tiawanda Moore for recording public activities of police officers, and when the law was declared unconstitutional by the U. S. District Court you appealed all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, which repudiated you.

14. You have unquestioningly prosecuted and defended the conviction of Black and Latino men and women arrested and framed up by corrupt police for serious crimes using perjured testimony and confessions you knew to be false and at variance with known facts and material evidence,

15. You continue a decades long tradition of cover-up of racism, sexism, and corruption in your office going back to the tenure of Richard M. Daley as State’s Attorney starting in 1981.

We Demand That You:

1. Investigate and prosecute the police officers who murdered Flint Farmer, Rekia Boyd, Dakota Bright, and many other people.

2. Release Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase, Brent Betterly, and Mark Neiweem on Personal recognizance bonds and drop their prosecution. Immediately vacate the sentence on Sebastian ‘Sabi’ Senakiewicz and release him. The terrorism charges against these men, the NATO 5, are absurd and are part of an FBI-local police conspiracy to suppress legal protests against U. S. foreign and military policy.

3. Drop all opposition to evidentiary hearings for all people who were convicted on the basis of confessions or testimony repudiated at trial claiming they were made only in response to tortured and coercion.

4. Create an independent “conviction integrity unit” to re-open all cases in which police officers associated with convicted torture ring leader Jon Burge were involved.

5. Put your political influence and weight behind the demand that the State Legislature restore and expand funding for the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission.

If you are unwilling to implement these proposals, we urge you to resign and call for a special election for a new State’s Attorney.

We look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely yours,

  • Cecelia Anderson, grandmother of Antwan Holiday, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau and John Halloran.
  • Genita Anderson, daughter of George Anderson, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau and James O’Brien working under Job Burge, convicted of murder, and sentenced to Natural Life in Prison
  • Rosemary Cade, mother of Antonio Porter, tortured by Chicago Police, sentenced to 74 yrs.
  • James & Gladys Daniel, father and mother of Erwin Daniel, tortured by Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge, confessed to murder and sentenced to natural life plus35 years in prison.
  • Curdestine Deloney, mother of Javan Deloney, tortured by Chicago Police Officers James O’Brien, William Foley, and Daniel McWeeny, confessed and sentenced to Natural Life in prison.
  • Nick Escamilla, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau, John Halloran and Michael Kill, and told that his wife would be arrested and his children taken from them if he did not confess.  Sentenced to 29 years in prison.
  • Bertha Escamilla, mother of Nick Escamilla.
  • Bianca Escamilla, daughter of police torture victim Nick Escamilla
  • Emmett Farmer, father of Flint Farmer, murdered by Chicago Police June 6, 2011
  • Maxine Franklin, mother of Jerry Gillespie, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau and John Halloran working under Jon Burge, confessed to murder, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
  • Gertrude Fulton, grandmother of Macellous Pittman, tortured by Chicago Police Officers James O’Brien, and John Halloran, confessed to murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
  • Mildred Henry, mother of Kilroy Watkins, tortured by Kenneth Boudreau working under Lt. Jon Burge, sentenced to 55 years in prison.
  • Carolyn Johnson, Mother of Marcus Wiggins, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau, James O’Brien, and Michael Kill working  under Jon Burge
  • Mary L. Johnson, mother of Michael Johnson, tortured by Chicago Police Commader Jon Burge and sentenced to Natural Life in prison.
  • Elecia Montgomery, mother of Marquise Sampson, 19, shot in the back and killed by Chicago Police July 8, 2012.
  • Aidali Oquendo, mother of Carlos Santos, tortured by Chicago Police Officer Kenneth Bouidreau, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 55 years in prison.
  • Irma Perez, Fiancée of police torture victim Nick Escamilla
  • Jeanette Plummer, mother of Johnny Plummer, tortured by Chicago Police James O’Brien, John Halloran, and Michael Kill under Lt. Jon Burge and former Chicago Police Sgt. Johm Byrne and sentenced to Natural Life in prison.
  • Wilma Preyar, mother of Antonio Triplett, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Officer James O’ Brien and William Moser.
  • Kenyatta M. Rosemond, sister of Rekia Boyd, 22, murdered March 22, 2012 by Police Officer Dante Sevrin.
  • Rosa Sanchez, mother of Rudy Davila, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Keneth Boudreau, James O’Brien, and John Halloran. Confessed and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
  • Cynthia Segura, sister of police torture victim Nick Escamilla
  • Amanda Shackelford, mother of police torture victim Gerald Reed
  • Denise Spencer, mother of police torture victim Michael Carter
  • Martinez Sutton, brother of Rekia Boyd, 22, murdered March 22, 2012 by Police Officer Dante Sevrin.
  • Enrique Valdez, tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau and Tony Maslanka, confessed and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
  • Mary Wilson, mother of police torture victim William Ephraim who was tortured by Chicago Police Officers Kenneth Boudreau, Kohn Halloran and Michael Kill working under Job Burge. Ephraim did not confess, but Boudreau. Halloran and Kill testified that he confessed verbally and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 52 years in prison.
  • David Wonkpah, father of police torture victim David Evans

Sources:   www.naarpr.org

www.StopPoliceCrimes.com


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