THREAD: Gerald Reed has been incarcerated for 30 years after being tortured into confessing to a crime he did not commit. His incarceration exposes the illegitimacy of the prison system. With the threat of the covid-19 pandemic, now is the time to #FreeGeraldReed and #FreeThemAll

Gerald was kidnapped by CPD on October 3rd, 1990. Detectives Michael Kill and Victor Breska, members of Jon Burge’s notorious “midnight crew”, proceeded to torture Gerald until he confessed to a double homicide.

During the “interrogation” the detectives broke a metal rod that had been placed in Gerald’s leg to repair his thigh bone from a gunshot wound. This injury has still not been adequately treated and Gerald cannot walk because of it.

Gerald has received inhumane medical treatment in prison. Sloppy, inconsistent prescription of drugs, neglect of his leg injury, and the harsh living conditions of prison have left him with chronic pain and health problems. This amounts to decades of continued torture.

The judicial system has consistently doubled down on the injustice committed against Gerald. Prior to trial, Gerald filed a motion to suppress the confession because he had been physically abused. The court used the tortured confession to convict him anyway.

The Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) found in 2012 (and amended in 2014) that there was a preponderance of evidence that Gerald had been tortured into confessing. His case was sent for judicial review in 2018 and it looked like he would be free soon after.

Judge Thomas Gainer vacated Gerald Reed’s conviction in December 2018 and then retired from the bench shortly afterward. The case was taken up by Thomas Hennelly, who wasted more than a year claiming that he did not have the entire court file.

It is important to note that Hennelly once worked under Robert Milan, the special prosecutor in this case. Legal experts have said that Hennelly should have recused himself due to the conflict of interest, but he chose to judge the case prosecuted by his former boss anyway.

On February 14th 2020, Hennelly gave his judgment in front of Gerald, Gerald’s mother Armanda Shackelford, and 100 supporters who were expecting good news. Instead Hennelly’s decision was to illegally overturn the ruling of Judge Gainer and reinstate Gerald’s conviction.

During his statement Hennelly repeated a racist metaphor used by Judge Michael Hooks to deny George Anderson’s appeal for a new trial. George Anderson was also tortured by Jon Burge’s henchmen.

Both judges said these torture survivors, who have piles of evidence that they were in fact tortured, are lying in an attempt to get money from the city. It took decades of work from families, advocates, and organizers to unearth this evidence only for the judges to ignore it.

Hennelly and Hooks attacked the credibility of torture survivors but said nothing about the credibility of detectives who have tortured hundreds of people (that we know of). There is no justice behind these decisions. This is a racist system trying to defend itself from progress.

There are hundreds of torture survivors in prisons and jails that we know about and many more that we don’t due to the lack of TIRC funding and the refusal of the judicial system to believe survivors. Gerald Reed’s story is the story of thousands of incarcerated people.

Side note: movies and TV about police often portray torture as a valid method of solving crimes. It isn’t. The purpose of police torture is not to find the truth, but to lock someone up so the cops can close the case. Police also do this by coercing witnesses and faking evidence.

Gerald Reed is currently in Stateville NRC and has been sick with covid-19 symptoms for nearly a week. As of yesterday, covid-19 has taken 8 lives from Stateville and 3 from Cook County Jail. Prisons, jails, and detention centers across the country are hotspots for the virus.

Armanda Shackelford has tried to get information about Gerald’s conditions, but prison authorities are refusing to tell her where exactly he is or how he’s doing. The prison system not only continues to torture Gerald, it repeatedly traumatizes his mother as well.

No one deserves to be tortured for 30 years. No one deserves to be confined in a crowded cage during a pandemic and no one deserves to fear that their family members will die locked up. That is why we must fight to #FreeGeraldReed and #FreeThemAll.
We must demand #MassReleaseNow!

Our calls, emails, petitions, letters, etc to @govpritzker demanding that he #FreeGeraldReed and depopulate the prisons have not gotten an adequate response, so we must continue to build mass pressure until we can make the governor do the right thing and meet our demands.

Tomorrow we're making our voices heard together with @BLMChi, @SOULInChicago, @chitorture and the families of torture survivors and prisoners to demand that @GovPritzker pardon Gerald Reed immediately and enact a #MassReleaseNow.