Chicago to pay victims of torture

CHICAGO - Chicago's leaders took a step Wednesday typically reserved for nations trying to make amends for slavery or genocide, agreeing to pay $5.5 million in reparations to the mostly African American victims of the city's notorious police torture scandal and to teach schoolchildren about one of the most shameful chapters of Chicago's history.

Chicago has already spent more than $100 million settling and losing lawsuits related to the torture of suspects by detectives under the command of disgraced former police commander Jon Burge from the 1970s through the early 1990s. The city council's backing of the new ordinance marks the first time a U.S. city has awarded survivors of racially motivated police torture the reparations they are due under international law, according to Amnesty International.

"It is a powerful word and it was meant to be a powerful word. That was intentional," Alderman Joe Moore said of the decision to describe it as reparations.

Before the council unanimously backed the deal, the names of more than a dozen victims were called out, and those men and their families were given a standing ovation.

"This stain cannot be removed from our city's history, but it can be used as a lesson in what not to do," said Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who stressed that Chicago had to do more than just pay the victims if it is to really get beyond this stain on its history.

Each of the approximately 80 victims is eligible to receive up to $100,000.