Flint Taylor - The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago

Rhythm of Life

This is part 2 of the interview host Bob Hercules conducted with the remarkably persistent and dedicated civil and human rights attorney Flint Taylor. Part 1 of this interview took a close look at the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, and the 13-year legal battle that ensued to successfully change the public narrative of how Hampton died. If you have not heard this part of the interview, which is episode 9 of this podcast, please give it a listen first. This part of the conversation transitioned to another one of Taylor’s landmark investigations that uncovered a systemic pattern of brutal torture in Chicago, which included the use of electric shock to elicit false confessions from subjects, led by the notorious police commander, Jon Burge.

Joining forces with community activists, torture survivors, other lawyers, and local reporters, Taylor and his colleagues at the People’s Law Office brought a lawsuit against the offending CPD officers and the City of Chicago. As the struggle expanded beyond the torture scandal to the ultimately successful campaign to end the death penalty in Illinois, and obtained reparations for many of the torture survivors, it set human rights precedents that have since been adopted across the United States. Both parts of this interview are explored in Taylor’s ground-breaking book, The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago, published by Haymarket Books.