Torture cop Kenneth Boudreau misses court, Johnny Plummer continues to demand freedom

Chicago, IL – Kenneth Boudreau is a retired Chicago cop with a heinous past.

He was part of the Midnight Crew, a group of detectives led by Commander Jon Burge from the 1970s to the 1990s. The city of Chicago officially recognizes that they systematically tortured more than 125 mostly young Black men to make false confessions, which led to wrongful convictions and death sentences. The number of survivors of torture, recognized by the Illinois Torture Commission, is over 400.

Johnny Plummer is one of the men Boudreau tortured who is still in prison. He was 15 years old in 1991 when he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit after being beaten and denied permission to see his mother.

Finally, evidence (which Plummer has testified to for the past 35 years) has surfaced. The record of the medical intake from the day he was transferred from police custody to juvenile detention showed up in a routine file review. It proves that a doctor recorded Plummer’s report of beatings and a forced confession.

At a hearing in June, Judge Tyria B. Walton declared she thinks that a Brady violation occurred. A Brady violation is when prosecutors fail to disclose impeaching evidence to the defense. A Brady claim requires three things: first, evidence favorable to the accused because it tends to prove innocence; second, the prosecution suppressed or failed to turn over the evidence; and third, there is reason to think that the outcome of the trial would have been different.

Given the seriousness of this moment, justice should require that the offending police detective be summoned to court at the earliest moment. He was scheduled to appear on Thursday, August 6, but that morning, the judge allowed him to avoid appearing in the courtroom.

Jasmine Smith is with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), where she helps lead the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST). When told the hearing was canceled because Boudreau didn’t show up, she was outraged, “He was called to testify by a judge; he shouldn’t be able to cancel like that.”

With pressure from organizers in CAARPR and the CFIST campaign, and due to the ceaseless efforts of Johnny Plummer, his family, and his attorneys, there will be another day in court for Beaudreau.

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