Late that same day, a North Carolina prison released an ex-police commander to a halfway house, after three and a half years behind bars. The former Chicago police officer was Jon Burge, 66, convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice relating to his participation in using torture to coerce false confessions from men in custody. Although a final count is uncertain, police commander Burge took part in torturing more than 100 black men, sometimes using electro-shock.
A Chicago police pension board has affirmed Burge's $4000-a-month police pension. The capture and conviction of Burge, as well as settlements to victims, is estimated to have cost $120 million to Chicago taxpayers.
The police organizations attacking Goddard College have not objected to the public paying a convicted police torturer some $48,000 a year in retirement.
October 3, 2014.
In great part because of the police protest, Goddard was receiving hundreds of threats of non-specific violence by phone and social media (https://twitter.com/hashtag/supportmumiagraduationspeech?src=hash Twitter was busy, and there was also Mumia support). Goddard reported these to the Vermont State Police, who said through a spokesperson that they planned to investigate the source of the threats and would keep in touch with the college in case the college needed help. According to VTDigger:
Goddard has received hundreds of phone calls, about one per minute Friday, and letting all of them go to voicemail, Goddard spokesperson Samantha Kolber said. College officials were responding to only the most urgent calls, she said. Some of the calls threatened violence and sexual assault.
To Police and Politicians: "Hands Off Goddard College!"
That was the headline of a piece in Counterpunch, an appeal by two college professors, one from the City College of New York, the other from the Princeton Theological Seminary. They note, in support of both Goddard and Mumi that: "His death sentence was ruled unconstitutional in 2001, and finally vacated in 2011."
They characterize Mumia as "a political prisoner, who was framed in the courts for his political beliefs and affiliations," whose supporters include Amnesty International and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
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