Organized Protest in the Pandemic Era

05/13/20

By Frank Chapman

We were told by Governor Pritzker to stay home and practice social distancing. Then the courts closed down. We were totally frustrated and had no real plans as to how we were going to organize during this pandemic. We have been showing up at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse for years in support of Gerald Reed, George Anderson, Marcus Wiggins and other police torture survivors who have been seeking justice. Under duress and torture, they were forced to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit; in other words they were wrongfully convicted.

This happened during a virtual reign of terror for the Black and Latinx communities enforced by a crew of police officers working under the command of Jon Burge, a former military interrogator who tortured Vietnamese prisoners of war. Back from the war and working as a Chicago police officer, he was assigned to the predominantly Black South side of Chicago, where he formed a group of detectives called the “midnight crew”. This so-called “midnight crew” tortured hundreds of young Black and Latinx men and we don’t know how many women into confessions by way of beatings, suffocation with plastic bags, electrical shocks, and starvation. These young men—some of whom we have named above—are the people for whom we have been showing up in court, trying to assist them in winning their freedom after years of unjust imprisonment and torture.

So, when the pandemic hit hard, the courts closed down, and prisoners started getting infected and dying from the new virus, we had to do something. And when Gerald Reed called his mother from Stateville prison in Jolliet, IL saying he was coughing up blood, we knew we had to do something fast.

We organized a caravan protest with 100 cars circling the Thompson Center on Monday, April 20, 2020 to demand the release of Gerald Reed and all the torture survivors, as well as elder prisoners, prisoners with urgent healthcare problems, women who are pregnant or with urgent health issues, and juveniles and immigrants held in detention centers. I will outline the situation we were facing and the situation we were organizing to change.

In Chicago, 70% of the coronavirus death toll is Black. Just a few weeks ago, Cook County Jail had the highest rate of infections in the country. In Illinois, Black people make up 15% of the state’s residents but 56% of people in prison. More than half of those are drug dependent. In total, there are 41,000 prisoners in state prisons, 23,000 in local jails and 9,000 in federal prisons. There are 1,500 in juvenile detention. We don’t have a number for immigrants held in detention. There are about 500 prisoners, mostly Black and Latinx, who are in state prisons as a result of being tortured and forced to confess to crimes they didn’t commit.

We sent a communication to the Governor and the press articulating our demands. It reads as follows:

“Because of COVID-19, prisons and detention centers have become death traps. Social distancing in prisons is impossible and the spread of the virus cannot be stopped within prison walls. But one thing is certain: the Governor has the power to free prisoners in order to save lives. We demand that the Governor free Gerald Reed, a police torture survivor who is currently in the infirmary at Stateville with COVID symptoms. Gerald’s original conviction was overturned in December 2018 as a result of the Governor’s Torture Commission, which found x-ray evidence of the bones that were broken during Gerald’s interrogation by subordinates of Commander Jon Burge.

Gerald should have been released or given a new trial. Instead, he was sent to Stateville in February 2020 by a rogue judge who lacked the authority to do so. While his case works its way through the legal system, Gerald is trapped at Stateville and running out of time. He should never been sent there in the first place. The Governor’s Commission already confirmed his torture. Now the Governor needs to release him before it’s too late!

Gerald is the face of thousands of other vulnerable prisoners and ICE detainees in Illinois who need to be released, including the immunocompromised, the elderly and the many others whose torture and wrongful convictions the Governor’s own Torture Commission has confirmed. While the Governor provides his daily COVID briefing at the Thompson Center, we will be outside demanding that he stop the death traps and free our people from prisons, jails and ICE detention centers in the name of human rights and justice.”

We were not ready for this pandemic. But we believe we were correct to continue to struggle, ready or not. The coronavirus is not racist, sexist or class conscious; it will kill anyone who is human. But the Trump administration is racist and is becoming bolder and more brazen by the hour. This is precisely why we must do all that is within our capacity to free those entrapped in the prisons and detention centers, because they are in fact death camps. Through car caravan protests and the ever-growing use of social media, we will continue to organize and fight back, and we will continue to build our movement. All Power to the People!

Frank Chapman was wrongfully convicted of murder and arm robbery in 1961 and sentenced to life and fifty years in the Missouri State Prison. His case was taken up by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression in 1973; in 1976, he was released. He had been incarcerated for 14 years. In 1983, he was elected Executive Director of NAARPR. He worked with Charlene Mitchell, who preceded him as Executive Director of NAARPR, on building an international campaign to free Rev. Ben Chavis and the Wilmington Ten, Joann Little, and others falsely accused and politically persecuted. In 1979, Chapman became a founding member of the U.S. Peace Council and was elected to its national board. He was part of the international campaign to free Nelson Mandela. He has been a part of leading the struggle in Chicago for community control of the police for the past eight years and to stop police crimes, especially murder, torture, beatings and racial profiling. He is presently Executive Director of the re-founded National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. He recently published his memoir, The Damned Don’t Cry: Pages from the Life of a Black Prisoner and Organizer.

Organized Protest in the Pandemic Era

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