CHICAGO — “Torture in Chicago should be considered a criminal act. All the victims should be immediately released,” said Mark Clements (center), the first speaker at the Militant Labor Forum here Dec. 20 titled “Support the Fight to Free All Those Framed Up and Tortured by Chicago Cops Under the Command of Jon Burge.”

Clements is a leader of the Jail Jon Burge Coalition, the Committee against the Death Penalty, and the Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression.

Also speaking were Jeannette Plummer (left), mother of Johnny Plummer, one of many incarcerated men who were tortured and framed up under command of Chicago detective Burge during the 1970s and ’80s; Wallace “Gator” Bradley, a leader of the fight against police torture; and John Hawkins (right) of the Socialist Workers Party.

The panel discussed the many working people brutalized by the “Midnight Crew,” a gang of detectives headed by Burge that terrorized Chicago’s South Side, using torture to extract confessions mainly from Black men in their custody. Burge was convicted in June 2010 on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about the torture in a civil lawsuit.

— ILONA GERSH