On a Tuesday morning in early May, students from Juanita Douglas’s African-American-history course sat in the library at Lincoln Park High School, on the North Side of Chicago, waiting noiselessly for Ronald Kitchen to compose himself. “Sometimes I be at a loss for words when I see a lot of young people actually taking heed to the things that’s happening in our neighborhoods,” he told the class. “I am a survivor of police torture from Jon Burge.”
Kitchen was twenty-two years old in August, 1988, when he was arrested at gunpoint while walking home from buying cookie dough to bake with his young son. The officers who arrested him said something about a car being stolen and told him that he’d be back from the precinct in forty-five minutes. “That was the longest forty-five minutes of my life.” Kitchen told the students. “Twenty-one years. The auto theft turned into five murders in the blink of an eye.” Detectives wanted him to admit to the killing of two young mothers and their three children. Jon Burge, who was then a commander in the Chicago Police Department, and three other officers took turns torturing Kitchen for seventeen hours, kicking him, punching him, and assaulting him with flashlights and nightsticks. Finally, fearing for his life, Kitchen agreed to sign a false confession. “When you know that you’re an innocent person, but you’re being pictured as a monster on the news, and you’ve been forced to say that you did something that you know is not in you, that’s the hardest thing,” Kitchen said.
His eyes filled with tears as he recounted the toll of his lost years: estrangement from his sons, trauma, insomnia, the deaths of family members. The school bell sounded, but no one stirred. “I love y’all giving me so much attention,” he said. “I never had this much attention. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.” Afterward, the teens lined up for hugs, photos, and questions. The class had prepared for Kitchen’s visit by reading up on his case, writing poems, and crafting tributes; meeting him in person was a thrill, something like a celebrity sighting. “How can we, as young people, make a change in police systems?” one student asked. “What are your thoughts on today’s videotaped police-brutality actions?” another inquired. “Are you actually able to sleep better now?” a third asked. “Because I know that sleep is, like, a big thing.”
[For more on this story by Thai Jones, go to https://www.newyorker.com/news...ry-of-police-torture]
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