Wednesday, July 25, 2012

No money to pay teachers. Really?

Rahm & Burge

But Rahm just settled another police torture case for over $5.375 million bringing the total so far to $53.6 million. That's the price taxpayers have been forced to pay to defend torturer Burge and his Area 2 cohorts, compensate torture victims and pay a special prosecutor to investigate the 110 torture cases we know about.

The largest of the two new pay-outs — for $5.37 million — will go to Michael Tillman, who spent 23 1/2 years in the penitentiary based on a tortured confession only to be declared innocent by the chief criminal court judge.

Why did Rahm settle this case? So former Mayor Daley, a declared "conspirator" in the torture of prisoners, wouldn't have to testify. On the 25th anniversary of Tillman's arrest, District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, in a precedent-setting decision, upheld Tillman's claims against Daley, ruling that they were sufficient to hold Daley as a conspirator in the scheme to torture and cover-up. That decision is what drove Rahm to settle the case and make it go away before his predecessor had to testify and possibly incriminate himself and the entire justice system.

Isn't it amazing how millions seem to appear magically when politically expedient?

2 comments:

  1. The cost of hiring back those 500 teachers in Chicago comes out to $40-50 million. The mayor could easily make up this cost simply by ending police torture. The savings to the tax payer would be enormous and the actual guilty parties would be paying for their crimes rather than innocent victims of conviction-hungry prosecutors and politicians.

    What a concept!

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  2. Yes, Rahm could also bring in money by selling off Burge's stash of electronic equipment to the folks running Guantanamo.

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