Chicago, IL – Over 150 survivors of wrongful convictions, their family members and community members gathered on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, March 22, for an action-focused town hall meeting. The event was organized by the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST) and aimed to strengthen the movement to free all survivors of wrongful conviction and end the system of police torture that has made Chicago the torture capitol of the United States.

The two-and-a-half-hour program took place at Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church in the Douglas neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. 4th Ward Alderman Lamont Robinson, who represents the Douglas neighborhood, was also in attendance, in addition to 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez.

A panel of six survivors of wrongful conviction and police torture opened the event: Frank Chapman, Kevin Jackson, Adolfo Davis, Clayborn Smith, Reginald Henderson and Sean Tyler.

These survivors, whose cases highlight the gross injustice of Chicago’s criminal “justice” system, shared moving testimonies detailing not only the trauma associated with their incarceration, but the strength of the movement that helped them win their freedom and need to keep fighting to free those still inside.

The mental and physical toll of being kidnapped and tortured by CPD detectives, locked up in the worst prison conditions imaginable, and separated from their families for decades, cannot be overstated.

“The only time we saw a sunrise was when we were up at 4 a.m. to be taken in to court” said Clayborn Smith, a survivor of torture and wrongful conviction. Smith was kidnapped in 1992 and tortured for 39 hours by CPD detectives John Halloran, Kenneth Boudreu and James O’Brien, and served 29 years for a murder he had nothing to do with.

But despite the trauma, the panel emphasized the need for further action to fight back against the system of frame-ups and coercion, dubbed the “torture machine” by civil rights lawyer Flint Taylor.

Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, was the elder on the panel. After 15 years of wrongful incarceration and 50 years in the movement since, Chapman’s perspective captured the essence of the whole evening.

“Don’t just talk to me about your pain and misery, cuz I done had that too. So have millions of others,” Chapman said. “But if you don’t ever get to the revolutionary side of misery, you don’t ever get to the solution.”

Kevin Jackson, who recently won his freedom after over 23 years of wrongful conviction at the hands of CPD detectives Brian Forberg and John Foster, described the movement’s role in winning his freedom.

“The movement is the reason I’m standing here right now,” Jackson said. “My lawyers were sitting there basically scratching their heads until public attention came to my case.”

During the years-long battle in court to win Jackson’s freedom, the CFIST campaign mobilized family members and movement supporters to attend his court dates and held dozens of press conferences and rallies drawing public attention to the case.

“They moved the needle,” Jackson said.

After the panel of survivors, a panel of legal experts took the stage, including Jorge Soto, a jailhouse lawyer and survivor of wrongful conviction; Michelle Mbekeani, former senior advisor to previous Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, and Sheila Bedi, a civil rights lawyer and clinical professor with the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Mbekeani, who worked for the most progressive State’s Attorney in Cook County in history, Kim Foxx, shared firsthand inside information on the racism and corruption of the office, describing the way that CPD detectives and prosecuting state’s attorneys work in the same building and often have close relationships that help them achieve and uphold wrongful convictions to advance their careers.

Soto, who served the joint-longest wrongful conviction sentence in Illinois history, has seen the corruption of the justice system from all angles.

There’s a pervasiveness of this white, patriarchal racism in the state’s attorney's office, like in CPD,” Soto said. “It’s a culture.”

The final panel of the evening featured the family members of survivors who are still inside. The panel, which included Anette Torres, girlfriend of Elias Gomez; Norma Jean Scales, aunt of Douglas Livingston; Johnnie Hayes, wife of Devon Showers, and Alicia Gill, sister of Michael Minniefield, inspired attendees with their dedication to the struggle to free their loved ones.

“We need to fight and not give up,” Torres said. “Elias is not alone. Your husband, your brother, your son, your nephew, they’re not alone.”

Merawi Gerima, co-chair of the CFIST campaign, also spoke briefly on the connection between the movement to end wrongful conviction and the broader fight for community control of police in Chicago.

Gerima described CFIST’s strategy of organizing around cases of wrongful conviction at the police district level by mobilizing community members to Police District Council meetings, a localized accountability body created by an ordinance fought for and won by CAARPR in 2021.

Decades of struggle to free the wrongfully convicted and end police torture provide more evidence that only a mass movement by and for working and oppressed people can win the power we need to hold the architects and enforcers of this racist system accountable, and replace it with a system that works for the people.

“There’s strength in the community and these organizations,” said Kevin Jackson. “So if you ain’t a part of one, join one!”

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #CFIST #NAARPR

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

Chicago, IL – “This is only a pinch of what we're going to do in August,” Merawi Gerima said to 150 people who rallied outside the 18th District police station on the Near Northside of Chicago, May 19.

Gerima is one of the co-chairs of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture (CFIST), a campaign of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). The main target of CFIST is the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, who has the power to grant clemency to every one of the hundreds of people who are still incarcerated despite their convictions being the proven result of torture by police.

“What’s going on in these prisons is horrendous. People are treated like animals. People like Rico Clark and Lester Owens are locked up by corrupt cops like Brian Forberg for crimes they didn't commit,” said Darien Harris, who spent over 12 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted, describing how the entire legal system, from police and prosecutors to judges and politicians, is guilty of mass torture and false imprisonment.

Protesters later heard a recorded message from Rico Clark, who is currently incarcerated. Clark explained the continuity between chattel slavery and today's prison system.

Protesters also admonished Pritzker and other politicians for their support of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“Pritzker has the power to grant clemency today. Pritzker has the power to stop funding Israel today. We are here to demand he uses that power for real justice,” Akiesha Lee, a member of Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) said after police barricaded protesters several blocks from Pritzker's house.

“Palestinians understand all too well the dehumanization and brutality that Black and brown people in this country face, as our people in Palestine also face the same kind of dehumanization and violence from the U.S.-backed, white supremacist, illegal Zionist occupation,” Nick Sous, a leading member of the Chicago chapter of US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) explained. USPCN is also a leading organization in the Coalition to March on the DNC.

“Black people and other oppressed people stand in solidarity with Palestine because we have mutual pain and suffering caused by the same enemy, so we have to unite and fight against that,” CAARPR Field Organizer Frank Chapman said at the end of the rally program.

“To these Democrats and Republicans, I want to say your time is up! We're going to fight and we're going to get justice from Chicago to Palestine,” April Ward declared. Ward is the mother of Mickeail Ward, whose conviction was recently overturned after ten years of fighting a wrongful murder conviction sensationalized in part by the Obamas.

The Sunday, May 19 protest was also the first of four consecutive actions organized by the Coalition to March on the DNC, of which CAARPR is a leading member. On Monday, May 13, coalition members met at Pritzker’s downtown office to demand that he grant clemency to torture survivors and end Illinois support for Israel.

On Tuesday evening, the coalition gathered 200 people at the Garfield Park Conservatory on Chicago's West Side to protest a DNC reception. Protesters aimed chants at Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, JB Pritzker, Sean Casten, Dick Durbin and Jan Schakowsky among others for the two hour duration as event attendees filed in and out of the Conservatory.

On Wednesday morning, the coalition met at the United Center while press outlets were conducting a walkthrough of the site where the DNC will take place between August 19 and 22.

“Wherever Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala show up there will be protests,” Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of USPCN said at a press conference outside the United Center.

Abudayyeh continued, “There will be no business as usual as long as our tax dollars are funding the genocide and occupation of Palestine. That's why tens of thousands of people will be here on August 19.”

#ChicagoIL #FreePalestine #MarchOnTheDNC #FreeRicoClark #USPCN #NAARPR #CAARPR #CFIST #SOUL #DNC #BDS #FreeThemAll

Chicago, IL – Over 1000 people rallied and marched from the Israeli Consulate through downtown Chicago on March 16 calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel’s genocide in Palestine and an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Irish flags rippled in the wind alongside Palestinian, Yemeni and South African flags on Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, as the afternoon demonstration highlighted the connection between Ireland and Palestine’s history of struggle and the need for solidarity against colonial oppression.

The event was organized by the Coalition for Justice in Palestine (CJP), which has organized weekly protests against Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide for five months in a row since October 7.

Solidarity was a central theme in the remarks of the rally’s speakers, including Merawi Gerima, a member of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) and a co-chair of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST).

Gerima emphasized the importance of unity of action, rather than unity of ideas, in building coalitions powerful enough to challenge the status quo. He cited the coalition for Justice in Palestine and Chicago’s Black and Brown Coalition for Palestine, which have mobilized massive demonstrations on a weekly basis and pressured politicians to take action to stop the genocide, describing them as “two magic weapons” for fighting U.S. imperialism.

“Solidarity is the most beautiful thing in the world,” Gerima said.

After Gerima’s remarks was Tom Callahan, an Irish American filmmaker and activist who is helping organize an Irish solidarity group for Palestine. Callahan spoke out against the Irish government officials who have met and presented President Biden with a bowl of shamrocks to celebrate their political relationship, even in the midst of a months-long genocide that Biden is facilitating.

Despite Ireland’s history of resisting colonial oppression, some Irish people “thought we could be free without everybody else,” Callahan said. “But Palestine is helping us remember that there’s no way out of this without solidarity.”

Tarek Khaill, a member of CJP and American Muslims in Palestine followed with a scathing rejection of President Biden’s recent delegation to Chicago to meet with Muslim and Palestinian leaders ahead of the primary elections. “We will not be used by this administration to further their political objectives,” Khaill said. “Our objective is the liberation of Palestine!”

After the speaking program, the crowd marched and chanted through downtown Chicago, busy with Saint Patrick’s Day foot traffic. Demonstrators held banners that read “No Irish pride in genocide,” “Hands off Rafah,” and “Stop the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

Before closing, a CJP spokesperson reminded attendees to mark their calendars for the Democratic National Convention August 19-21, when the Coalition to March on the DNC will center the demand for a free Palestine as they bring the People’s Agenda within sight and sound of the Democratic party leaders.

#ChicagoIL #CoalitionforJusticeinPalestine #CAARPR #CFIST #StPatricksDay

Chicago, IL – “You can't throw a stone and not hit someone who is affected by police torture and wrongful conviction here in Chicago, the torture capital of the United States,” said Merawi Gerima, a co-chair of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture (CFIST.)

Gerima was speaking at the annual People's Hearing on Police Crimes on Saturday, February 24, at the office of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) in Woodlawn neighborhood on the predominantly Black South Side.

Activists and organizers raised demands for freedom for survivors of torture, wrongful conviction and political imprisonment. They called for improvement of conditions in prisons, accountability for cops who killed and tortured people, an end to cruel practices like solitary confinement, and renewed the call for community control of the police.

“Growing up in Englewood, I saw my brother get beat up by the police. My nephews got beat up by the police,” said Norma Scales, the aunt of Douglas Livingston, who was wrongfully convicted due to Sergeant Brian P. Forberg, emphasizing the widespread nature of police crimes in Chicago.

“It's mind boggling that hundreds of people have been tortured by police into confessing to crimes they didn't commit. It's even more mind boggling that many of them are still in prison 20, 30, or 40 years later,” said Frank Chapman, CAARPR field organizer, explaining the history of police torture in Chicago.

Chapman particularly focused on Detective Jon Burge, who trained a whole generation of CPD detectives in torture techniques he learned from the U.S. war on Vietnam. CAARPR initiated the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture in 2019 to demand mass pardons for Burge’s victims and all survivors of police torture.

Chapman also spoke about cases of survivors of wrongful conviction who had gotten their charges dropped by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

“Kim Foxx started budging because of the noise people made and the outreach people was doing to bring awareness to these cases,” said Jasmine Smith, one of the co-chairs of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture, describing how the strategy of mass pressure works to free survivors.

“We need masses of the community coming out and speaking on behalf of our loved ones,” said Marylin Mulero of Innocent Demand Justice, who spent 28 years incarcerated for a crime she didn't commit.

“The police are still using torture, not just in Chicago but all over the country,” said Curtis Ferdinand with the Chicago Torture Justice Center (CTJC), explaining how torture and other police crimes in Chicago are connected to the system of white supremacy throughout the United States.

Many other survivors and loved ones of people harmed or killed by the police and prisons, including Cassandra Greer, Adolfo Davis, Melba Brown and David Lincoln, spoke about the violence committed by the state and how they have been fighting for justice. Speakers made connections between police crimes and other crimes of the ruling class, such as the genocide in Gaza, homelessness, deportations and exploitation of workers.

“This movement is about survival. It’s about resistance. We don’t just preach against injustice. We fight injustice, and it’s not just Black people, it’s everybody who needs to join together and fight,” stated Frank Chapman said before reciting a poem about solidarity with Palestine. “We can’t give up hope and we can never give up unity.”

“These stories remind us of why we have to unify and transform our society into one where these things can never happen again,” said Gerima before describing how the movement for community control of the police has already taken steps towards empowering oppressed people in Chicago to stop police crimes with Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS).

The People’s Hearing ended with chants of “free them all!”

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #Torture #PoliceBrutality #OppressedNationalities #CAARPR #CFIST #ECPS #Feature

Chicago, IL – Organizers with the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention held a press conference outside City Hall on Tuesday morning to speak out against the denial of their permit applications. The Chicago Department of Transportation gave the coalition an alternate route four miles away from where the DNC is scheduled to happen.

“We reject their decision because we have the right to voice the demands of the people within sight and sound of the DNC. We demand a permit to march as a gesture of good faith that the police will not introduce violence into our family-friendly protest.” said Jasmine Smith, a co-chair of the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture (CFIST), which is a campaign of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

“Many of the attendees of the DNC are responsible for or complicit in U.S. aggression against other countries including genocide in Palestine, police committing crimes with impunity, mass incarceration, deportations, neglect of LGBTQ and reproductive rights, undermining of workers’ demands, and other injustices against the people,” Smith continued.

“We all have the right to protest within sight and sound of the DNC, but right now, Palestinians should be afforded even more of this right, since the politicians that will be here, including Genocide Joe Biden, are the ones responsible for the almost 30,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by the U.S.-funded Israeli military since October 7,” said Nazek Sankari with the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)

Tthe Democratic Party base in Chicago wants a ceasefire, wants to see Israel stop the genocide, wants to see its nominal leader, Joe Biden, stop arming Israel and end U.S. aid to Israel,” Sankari continued.

“We want money for jobs and education, not for wars and occupation. From Palestine to the Philippines, we demand an end to the U.S. war machine,” said Diana Balitaan with Anakbayan Chicago, after explaining how Democratic Party politicians are allied with the reactionary Marcos Duterte regime in the Philippines.

“We’re demanding that the Democrats act and vote on our behalf, on behalf of asylum seekers and all immigrants,” said Maggie Lugo, executive director of the Federation of Michoacan Clubs. “We’re not asking, we're demanding what we deserve.''

“With or without a permit we are going to be out there. They can't stop u,” said Regina Russell, member of Mothers Advancing Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS) in a written statement.

The coalition will be appealing the decision in court this week, but organizers emphasized that the mass movement will ultimately be responsible for winning the permit.

“This is not our first rodeo,” Joe Iosbaker with CAARPR said in reference to his and other coalition members’ experience organizing marches on NATO and the RNC, as well as mass rallies for all the fights coalition members are involved in.

Iosbaker continued, “We’re going to get a permit because the power of the people is stronger than the people in power.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #UnitedStates #DNC #MarchOnDNC2024 #NAARPR #CAARPR #USPCN #CFIST #Anakbayan