A criminal investigation is under way into allegations by five prisoners who say they were beaten by guards in July 2000 while handcuffed and shackled at the County Jail, Cook County State’s Atty. Richard Devine acknowledged on Thursday.
As Devine was making his announcement, Cook County Board President John Stroger said he would ask Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel to convene a grand jury to investigate another alleged beating in February 1999 in which 49 prisoners say they were beaten by an elite team of guards.
All 17 members of the County Board signed on as co-sponsors of a resolution Thursday by Commissioner Earlean Collins calling for an independent investigation of the jail system by a law school or university.
Devine’s announcement came after representatives of community justice groups and the Chicago Council of Lawyers called a news conference to say they had delivered a letter to Devine requesting a criminal investigation into the 2000 incident.
Jean Maclean Snyder, of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago, which filed a lawsuit for the five inmates, said their investigation showed as many as 30 jail officers were involved. As many as 20 beat the prisoners and others lied to cover it up and threatened two other jail officers who have since come forward to detail the beatings, Snyder said.
“It is a crime for officers to watch what happened and lie in a court proceeding about it,” she said. “They didn’t lose a wink of sleep. They counted on the code of silence.”
In a statement, John Gorman, spokesman for Devine, said: “We generally do not comment on investigations, but when allegations of this magnitude arise and receive widespread public attention, we are compelled to speak. . . .
“We were informed by the MacArthur Justice Foundation that it had gathered information into allegations of abuse by guards at the Cook County Jail. These are serious charges and will be taken seriously. . . . There is an investigation and it continues,” Gorman said.
Jail officials say the disturbance in the special incarceration unit, where the most dangerous inmates are held, was triggered by one of the inmates, former El Rukn gang leader Nathson Fields, who sought to provoke a fight with guards in hope of filing a brutality lawsuit.
The inmates contend that during a shakedown for contraband and weapons, guards began tossing all of their belongings out of their cells, then forced them to run a gantlet of officers who punched them. That touched off a brawl that ended with the handcuffing and shackling of the five inmates and then the alleged beating.
Lawyers for the sheriff’s office have obtained statements from three other prisoners who were in the cellblock and say Fields planned to instigate the fight. Some officers accused of participating in the beating have given statements in the lawsuit denying the post-brawl beating ever occurred.
The Internal Affairs Division ruled the claims of the inmates and the guards were “inconclusive,” a finding midway between sustained and exonerated. Prosecutors were asked to investigate the beatings, according to an internal affairs report, but declined to approve filing of charges.
Fields, who is awaiting trial on charges of a double murder, filed a lawsuit in 1998 against officers at the Menard Correctional Center alleging physical mistreatment in 1997. State corrections officials deny the allegations and contend he was “involved in a conspiracy to assault staff.”
The MacArthur Center lawyers said their evidence includes sworn testimony from two former jail officers who say they were harassed and threatened by other officers for refusing to try to cover up the beatings. Both say they resigned Feb. 4 because their requests for transfer out of the jail were declined.
Those officers, Roger Fairley and Richard Gackowski, have agreed to testify if called before a grand jury investigating the 2000 beating. Fairley has testified as part of the lawsuit brought by the inmates that he saw the men beaten while handcuffed and shackled and attempted unsuccessfully to stop it.
“Our penal system is simply broken,” Fairley said at the news conference in explaining why he came forward. “I finally reached and exceeded the limit of what I have witnessed, could continue to witness–what I could tolerate–and still live with my conscience and myself.
“I am not on the side of the lawbreakers,” Fairley said, referring to prisoners convicted of crimes. “Most of them deserve to be just where they are: incarcerated without freedom and awaiting trial. But they do not deserve to be handcuffed, shackled, brutalized and beaten again and again with no way to defend themselves . . . “
Gackowski, who has testified in a deposition that his life was threatened, said at the news conference: “We would like to believe that our efforts will not be in vain, but would instill in those officers who truly believe in the oath that they took that this system can work and that this is a fight worth fighting.”
On Tuesday, Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan announced a 3-member panel would review allegations of brutality at the jail, which currently houses more than 12,000 prisoners. The panel was formed following Tribune reports last week on the two alleged beatings in the jail.
The first occurred Feb. 24, 1999, when 49 prisoners said members of Special Operations Response Team (SORT) beat them. A sheriff’s office internal affairs investigation of the incident was stalled for more than two years–during which time the statute of limitations on criminal charges expired.
On Tuesday, Sheahan disciplined eight officers for their conduct in the 1999 incident. Richard Remus, the head of the SORT unit, was removed from his command and suspended for 29 days without pay. There was no finding of brutality against any of those disciplined.
The MacArthur center will begin its own investigation of the 1999 incident, Snyder said. It also has agreed to represent inmate Cello Pettiford, who was acting as his own lawyer when he filed the only lawsuit over the alleged beating.
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The second incident occurred on July 29, 2000. In testimony as part of the lawsuit brought by the prisoners, Fairley testified he was summoned to the cellblock to assist other officers when the brawl erupted.
He said after it was quelled, he saw officers push and drag five prisoners down a corridor awash in blood and into a windowless room. “I saw them hitting them with elbows, stomping on their faces and heads, kicking them in the face,” Fairley testified. “I yelled at them to stop because what I saw was too violent. But they didn’t.”
The letter to Devine was also signed by representatives of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and the Community Renewal Society. A local official of Amnesty International, a worldwide human rights organization, as well as the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago, also urged Devine to investigate.
Sheriff’s spokesman Bill Cunningham, who said both incidents were intially reviewed by prosecutors, said the sheriff’s office welcomes “any sort of outside review of any incident at the jail.”
Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley said the board also should push for a broad, independent investigation of the jail that goes beyond the two alleged beatings.
“It’s the 50 or 60 incidents that have created a problem not just with litigation but across the board with the culture of how [Sheahan’s] office operates,” Quigley said. “It would be a mistake to focus on isolated incidents when it’s systemic.”