Burge torture victim claims police harassment after exoneration

Caine was charged as an accessory to double murder in 1986, after he was tortured into confessing by detectives working under former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge — Burge is currently serving a four-and-a-half year sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice. The former commander is accused of torturing hundreds of criminal suspects in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. In July, the Chicago City Council agreed to pay Caine $10 million to settle his police torture lawsuit against the city.

Caine said he first came in contact with River Forest police in the summer of 2012, when he was returning to his apartment on the 1500 block of Bonnie Brae. A squad car pulled up behind him as he turned into the alley. As he walked to his back door, a female officer pulled up and asked, “Do I know you?”

He said the officer asked if he was Eric Caine because she had seen him on TV. “Burge made us all look bad,” she told Caine.

Caine said his trouble in River Forest began in early March, when he was returning home from court. As he turned down an alley to his apartment, he said he was boxed in by a black, unmarked police truck and a River Forest police squad car.

Laird emerged from the truck saying, “Eric Caine, you’re under arrest for driving on a suspended license,” according to Caine, who presented Laird with a restricted driving permit he received from the Illinois Secretary of State. Laird reviewed the permit and left without making an arrest, but Caine said the episode left him with flashbacks of his quarter-century behind bars.

“I was so shook up. After they left, all I did was sit in the car for about 20 minutes. I was crying,” he said. “It was bad. It was real, real bad. I was so, so scared.”

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