JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we spend the rest of the hour in Chicago, where the Illinois Supreme Court has let stand a lower than 7-12 months prison sentence for former police officer Jason Van Dyke, who was found responsible last 12 months of second-degree homicide for killing African-American teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014. The Illinois Supreme Court denied a request by the state’s attorney general to resentence Van Dyke on Tuesday. The news that Van Dyke will not be resentenced has sparked criticism throughout Chicago. We’re joined now by the book’s author, Flint Taylor, an attorney with People’s Law Office who has represented survivors of police torture in Chicago for more than 25 years. But I need to show to the clip from the documentary The Weather Underground concerning the homicide of Black Panther Fred Hampton almost 50 years ago, on December 4th, 1969. This clip begins with Fred Hampton. If the petition had been granted, Van Dyke might have confronted to up 96 years in prison. Lori Lightfoot, the entrance-runner in the race, tweeted, quote, "Today’s ruling is the latest disappointment in the Jason Van Dyke sentencing, and a sad reminder of the work we must do to create a system that's freed from institutional racism and really holds police accountable for their misconduct, including criminal acts.

Van Dyke is the primary Chicago police officer to be sentenced for an on-duty shooting in half a century. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, you make the point in your guide that that was the start of the resistance, mass resistance, of the black community, that ultimately led to the election of Harold Washington as the primary black mayor of Chicago. And yet, the assumption that we will do much less unhealthy by putting first than if we strike second is what month was it 7 months ago confronts us in Ukraine with an actual risk of a nuclear war coming out of this battle - in other phrases, of most life on Earth - not all, most life on Earth - being extinguished as a matter of the management of Crimea or the Donbas or Taiwan. So thanks all, all non-elite and Serious Sellers Club members for becoming a member of us. After which, through the years, as we and others were in a position to litigate a case in federal courtroom, we had been ready to show not only that this was a vicious, racist assault on the Panthers and its management, where two men were killed and lots of others wounded, nevertheless it was half and parcel of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, the counterintelligence program devised and carried out by J. Edgar Hoover over time, which within the late ’60s focused the Black Panther Party, and specifically Fred Hampton in Chicago, and, in fact, that the raid on the condo was a part of this COINTELPRO program.

And one of those Black Panthers was the chairman of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, a charismatic younger leader, who when was 7 months ago targeted not solely by the police, but by, it turns out, the FBI. "This is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan freedom movement," mentioned Ferguson, who said it’s possible that a large-scale attack primarily based on this exploit would use that information as bait. But you start the guide with an incident that, for many younger individuals as we speak, isn't even part of history, but it’s not typically covered history. She had 50 or 60 people in the snow on Friday morning, not Saturday morning, not Sunday morning, however as an alternative of going to highschool. Who is going to face up to that? The city’s mayoral candidates, who are both African-American ladies, have spoken out towards the choice. AMY GOODMAN: The choice is the most recent in the struggle by activists, lawyers, journalists to carry the Chicago Police Department accountable for its long historical past of violence against the city’s citizens, significantly African-American men. On the cover, the torture machine, that was the electric shock field that the infamous Commander Jon Burge and his males used on many African-American suspects over that 20-12 months period that you simply just mentioned.

The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago exposes many years of corruption and canopy-ups within the Chicago Police Department, from the homicide of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and Mark Clark to the reign of torture overseen by Commander Jon Burge. And you make the assertion that the killing of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark actually was a seminal moment in the event of Chicago, in the modern history of Chicago. Much of that history is chronicled in a new ebook by a number one Chicago lawyer combating police torture. " The explanation I admire her so much is just not only the brilliance of this motion, her acting on her personal initially, taking the initiative, advising others, doing it within the form of a general strike, which is - I believe, is a extremely important method of demonstrating nonviolent motion, their withdrawal of help. I name again to the young people who Greta Thunberg has mobilized on us to say, "The adults are not taking good care of this, and our future completely will depend on this altering by some means fast, now." The picture I used to be looking at, which I’ll - I can show you right here, I suppose - I just occur to have it by me here - was when was 7 months ago I used to be in Norway.

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