Chicago Set to Pay $5.5 Million in Reparations for Police Torture Victims Between 1970 - 1990

The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved a $5.5 million reparations package for the victims, who are mostly African-American men who were tortured by the city's police in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The city's notorious police torture scandal also includes a formal apology and a promise to teach schoolchildren about one of the darkest chapters in Chicago's history.

"It is the first time that a municipality in the United States has ever offered reparations to those violated law enforcement officials," said Joey Mogul, a co-founder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, partner at the People's Law Office and drafter of the original reparations ordinance.

The fund will compensate victims tortured by notorious former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge, and his detectives under his command, between the early 1970s and the early 1990s.

The reparation package includes a $5.5 million fund, specialized psychological counseling services, free enrollment at City Colleges, housing, and job placement to survivors and their families.

The city council has also agreed to provide a formal apology, a public memorial to torture survivors, and a new school curriculum meant to teach students on the legacy of police torture and brutality.

"Today's historic achievement (...) is owed to the decades of organizing to bring some justice to the survivors of Burge and his fellow officers' unconscionable torture," said Mariame Kaba, founder and executive director of the Project NIA community advocacy group. "We have successfully organized to preserve the public memory of the atrocities experienced by over 110 black people at the hands of Chicago police torture because we refuse to let anyone in this city ever forget what happened here."