Cindy Eigler and Aislinn Pulley are co-executive directors of the Chicago Torture Justice Center, which seeks to address the traumas of police violence and institutionalized racism through access to healing and wellness services, trauma-informed resources, and community connection. The center’s Survivor Family Advisory Council also contributed to this piece.
The survivors we work with at the center underwent the most hideous and inhumane violence at the hands of the police and spent decades in prison taken from their families and communities—and yet, the pain they describe most often is the pain of telling their stories of being harmed, being dismissed and disbelieved. We at the Chicago Torture Justice Center believe a letter of this nature by the FOP is an additional form of psychological torture and traumatization directed at individuals who have already suffered immeasurable harm and loss.
The letter from the FOP is an attempt to obstruct the movement for reforms by the State’s Attorney’s office, consent decree, and other official bodies in response to the devastating statistics that prove the disproportionate amount of police violence experienced in Black communities.. This letter, and the actions we have witnessed in the courts in the last year alone, demonstrate the strategy being perpetrated by law enforcement and the criminal legal system: deny that torture happened and then punish survivors with the threat of perjury after they come forward with the truth.
