spoke digital films

Jon Burge, the ringleader of the Chicago Police Department’s history of Abu-Ghraib sytle torture from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, has been arrested and charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.  (I have embedded the trailer to Shielded Brutality below, which is the documentary I’ve been producing documenting this history.)

From chicagobreakingnews.com:
Retired Chicago police Cmdr. Jon [...]

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I remain awestruck by the number of mom and pop companies making big dollars in the defense industry… Imagine if the owners and employees of these companies wouldn’t dream of voting for a candidate that proposed cutting our education budget the same way I presume they vote for candidates who protect military expenditures. America might be a different country.

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Before January gets too far along, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on the year past, especially as it relates to the making of my film, Shielded Brutality. In short, last year was hugely successful, and ended on the great note of two and half years of hard work coming together successfully. But before I get to that, let me quickly recap what was accomplished. Here are some of the people I was fortunate enough to film interviews with over the past year discussing the Burge history and criminal justice reform in general.

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We just found out this week that our documentary film, Shielded Brutality, was awarded the Media Justice Fund grant from the Crossroads Fund in Chicago! This will be a huge asset in finishing the film and I can’t thank the people at Crossroads enough.
It’s been a very busy past few months. Much [...]

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View the Quicktime trailer for the documentary film “Shielded Brutality”, which documents a 30-year scandal of police torture and political cover-up in Chicago

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In addition to the disturbing anecdotes of abuse and torture recounted by multiple witnesses, Commissioners continually pressed testifying attorneys and legal scholars for help in figuring out how to punish the perpetrating officers despite the failed investigation by the Special Prosecutors.

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Today, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to pass three of four resolutions relating to Chicago’s history of police torture (the Jon Burge Scandal); the fourth has been sent to committee. All of the resolutions were sponsored by Commissioner Earlean Collins. The three resolutions that passed are as follows:

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Dr. Morris’s commentary was deeply thoughtful, insightful, and passionate as he discussed his thoughts regarding Chicago’s history of police torture and issues of social justice in general. I am very grateful to him for taking the time to participate. Below are a couple of stills from the interview:

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Today has been designated the Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice and thosands will be marching in Washington demanding Congress to restore our constitutional values. I’m disappointed I was unable to attend, but we can all call our members of Congress to ask them to support the following measures:

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Mr. Willis has been an unrelenting activist for civil rights since leading the charge to name Chicago’s west side campus Malcolm X College in 1969. He has been one of the most important figures in fighting for justice for Burge torture victims.

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