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There was a detective commander named John Børge and John Birju. He was he and his group of rogue detectives were investigating crimes, homicides in particular.

They would find a suspect and they would torture the suspect into confessing to the crime. They would do everything from attaching electrodes to genitals.

I'm not making this up. These are some of the things that have been documented that John Berge was doing and his detectives were doing to people. In 1970, a 22 year old named John Birju joined the police force in Chicago. By the time he was dismissed in 1993, he and some detectives under him had allegedly tortured more than 100 people in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s.

A friend of mine and I were doing a death penalty case. And as part of the motion, we produced a picture of the holding cell bench, which was wooden at the time, and the client had scratched out on a wooden oak bench there, torturing me. And that's why he gave a confession.

Mary Jane Plesac is a public defender in Chicago.

She's been an attorney since 1973. Were you seeing your clients who had been roughed up by the police?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a crime and it's a disgrace. Within the criminal justice system, it's been well documented, the so-called Birju era ET like that. We have pictures. We had everything. My office always filed multiple motions.

John Burge and as detectives were known as the Midnight Crew, or Bourges ass kickers, federal prosecutors later alleged that the group tortured suspects by beating them, suffocating them, burning them and administering electric shocks.

John Birju was white. Most of the suspects were black. A man named Sharded Moomin, who is incarcerated in an Illinois state prison, later testified that Birju held him for hours at police headquarters in Chicago in 1985, pressuring him to confess.

He said that Burge held a revolver against his head, put one bullet in the cylinder, spun it and then pulled the trigger. When it didn't fire, Birch pulled the trigger two more times, the man refused to confess, and so Birju pressed a plastic typewriter cover over his face until he became unconscious. Birju repeated the process two more times, until the man did confess. Things had gotten so out of control that the Cook County Public Defender's Office in Chicago wrote to the U.S. attorney general about the systematic torture of black male suspects in order to coerce them to make confessions.

They had badges and guns and they were very dangerous.

There were people who spent 25, 30 years in the penitentiary on charges that they confessed to because they were being tortured and the torture all that much of the torture allegations led back to Detective Commander John Burge and his group of detectives.

The full extent of John Bourges misconduct didn't become public knowledge until later. He was fired in 1993 but continued to collect a pension. Cook County prosecutors conducted a lengthy investigation, but no one could be charged with torture. The statute of limitations had passed. Later, Børge was convicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury, he lied under oath, denying that he'd tortured suspects. In 2011, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

In 2016, the city of Chicago paid nearly 5.5 million dollars to 57 victims who'd been tortured by John Berge and his so-called midnight crew. That was in addition to more than 100 million dollars the city of Chicago had already paid in reparations, settlements and legal fees stemming from police abuse. John Birju died in Florida in 2000 18. Back in the height of the Børge era in the Chicago Police Department, long before there were cell phone cameras, there was an African-American TV news reporter named Rushworth, and Russ was doing his thing in the midst of all this.

And a lot of people forget that this is what was going on in the city in terms of the criminal justice system when Russ Ewing was going out and people were turning themselves in to rush you. He was right in the middle of all this. Rushing showed the police and the people that someone was watching what was going on and filming, as he put it. I just did the best I could with what I had. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal.

He knew something was going on because why were these people so afraid of the police? He knew that and he knew that the people were most afraid of being beaten up by the cops. That was the phrase, if I turn myself in to them, they will beat me up. And he knew that that they would beat suspects up. It was well known that if you had that kind of dilemma, the cops were looking for you, whether you did it or not, and you went to Russ, Russ would ensure that you would be turned in and that you wouldn't be beaten or tortured at the hands of the police.

Rescuing and his cameraman would document your surrender, put it on the evening news, and that would create public proof that if you ended up with a broken arm later, that arm was broken in police custody.

What he did is he shined a light on it. Everybody talks about transparency those days, it was shining light on it. It's simple as this when you know someone's watching, you are good.

Public defender, Mary Jane, classic authorities knew he was watching. Authorities knew that he would follow up. So you didn't have a lot of misconduct involved in it. You had the rules followed by the judges, by the state's attorneys, by the police. He made us all better. I do not think that there would be too many other reporters who would stick their necks out who would endanger themselves.

Former ABC seven Chicago producer Pat Arnold Ross went into some really dangerous situations, sometimes one on one with a murderer with a gun in his hand.

So journalists, you know, we don't do that.

That's not part of the job description. So, you know, this is like, of course, I'll do this.

This is somebody needs to do this. And and he did it.

Ewing was born on December 28th, 1923. He grew up on the south side of Chicago. He became an orphan when he was very young and he was raised by neighbors. In 1956, he became one of the city's few black firefighters. Ross once described getting to the scene of a house fire.

The woman who owned the House, who was white, said she wouldn't let him and other black firefighters put out the fire. The house burned down. The Civil Rights Act wouldn't pass for another eight years, and Rest said in an interview that white firefighters who misbehaved or were, quote, alcoholics were sent to work with the black firefighters as punishment.

There were segregated fire stations and black firefighters were rarely promoted.

One of the things that shifted his career was as a firefighter, he was privy to inside information about the way black firefighters were treated compared with white firefighters, Rush started exposing the fire department's practices to a local black newspaper called The Chicago Defender.

At first he used fake names and then I think he just stepped out and, you know, identified himself. And as a result, you know, then media outlets reached out to him. He would look at certain situations and he would expose them because he just didn't think it was right. Ross got his first job in TV in the mid 60s when McHugh Channel five, he was hired to deliver film. But Ross also pitched stories and was eventually promoted to work on news copy by 1969.

He'd been promoted again to on camera reporter. This was the 60s and it was very important to have black reporters and camera people and photographers whatever to go into certain neighborhoods because they could go places where a white crew could not.

Ross said that when he started, there were very few black employees. He recalled one reporter, one window washer, someone in the cafeteria and a security guard. His big early stories covered abuses at the Chicago dog pound and discriminatory lending practices. And then he started doing something different, something nobody else was doing. I think the very first time just came by accident, here's rescuing, speaking in a 1992 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

There was a mental patient who was holding a woman and two young children hostage for a long time. He was threatening the police had surrounded the house. They had been there for quite a while. They didn't want to try to rush the house because they thought he might kill one of the innocent people. But after waiting for a long time, I asked the police. I said, let me see if I can talk to the guy. Ross later said that the police told him, I'll go ahead and get your head shot off, we can't stop you.

And I got up near the door. He recognized me from television. He let me come in. We talked for about an hour. And the only thing we talked about I didn't talk about surrendering. I, I just talked about using a philosophy that any kind of living is better than any kind of dying. After we talked about it for a while, he put the gun down and we walked out arm in arm. And it's been going on ever since.

In 1976, two men named James Shelton and Sidney Carver walked into a currency exchange office with guns and demanded money.

They took two employees hostage and escaped from the currency exchange. They broke into a nearby apartment and barricaded themselves inside while hundreds of police officers surrounded the building.

According to a Macu Channel five cameraman, the men said they wouldn't come out because they didn't trust the police. When the police asked who they did trust, they said Russett, they'd seen him on TV. The police contacted Russ. The cameraman said what finally swayed James Shelton and Sidney Carver to surrender was Russell's guarantee that they wouldn't get shot. When they asked how he could be sure, Russ said, because if they shoot you, they'll have to shoot me.

Another call came in just a week later. And after that, it snowballed over the years, rescuing stood beside more than 100 men and women as they surrendered to the Chicago police. Once the word got around that you were safe with us. You could tell him anything. He could keep a secret. It was just like a no brainer. Sometimes suspects families would call him because they knew that he would deliver their loved one to the police station safely.

After talking with the person who wanted to surrender, sometimes for hours, Russ would either drive them to the police station or escort them to a waiting police car. He often got in the police car and rode along to the station when the suspects were afraid of being alone with the police. What do you always stand close to the suspect I was leading them in? Absolutely no. He was he held their arm. Now, he he usually locked arms with his suspects because they were his brothers, they were his people, they were his neighbors, they were his they were people that knew him.

They trusted him. You trusted him immediately because you thought he was from the neighborhood. In fact, you knew he was from the neighborhood. He was that kind of guy. In 1982, a man named Russell Catlett was visiting his lawyer in downtown Chicago. He was waiting on a settlement payment from a bus accident, but it hadn't come yet. He was unemployed and frustrated and he pulled out a gun and took his lawyer hostage. The police were called Russell Catlett asked for rescuing.

He reached out and he touched his hand and he said, your name is Russell. And my name is Russell, so we have something in common. The. Touching of the suspect, the affirming that you are not a pariah, you know, when when somebody has done something egregious, you know, they're afraid, they know that they will be perceived as, you know, maybe the scum of the earth.

But not by rescuing. This is Eyewitness News. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Faye Heflin, and here's what's happening. A 29 year old Chicago man is in custody tonight. He's described as a broken man, a victim of chronic unemployment, separated from his wife and young son this morning in a loop office. Russell Catlett pulled a gun and took attorney most Arab hostage. He said he wanted to talk to Channel Seven's Rasouli. Deputy chief Charles Pipp was in charge of police at the scene.

He would not allow me to go inside the room until Russell Catlett agreed that he would put the weapon inside a desk drawer. Once inside the room, we talked about his effort to get a job. He said that he could have robbed someone to get money, but he simply wanted a job. At one point, Catlett appeared irrational and started to cry. We walked out of the building together. He said that he was sorry, that he did not intend to hurt anyone.

I had promised that I would stay at his side all the way, and I promised that police would not use handcuffs all the way to police headquarters. He kept repeating all he wanted was a job and the settlement that he felt he had coming from the lawsuit. Thank you again, rush, rush, rush. A rare and remarkable human being, as evidenced again today during his 16 years as a reporter here in Chicago, his hometown. Thirty one wanted murderers have volunteered themselves into the custody of Ruscio.

Did anyone ever criticize him for helping the police? I spoke to someone the other day like, was he a rat or was he, you know, that sort of you know, are you talking about. Was he a snitch? Was criticized for that sort of thing? Yeah, he wasn't helping the police.

Public defender, Mary Jane Plesac.

This is what people don't understand. These people came to him. It wasn't like he went out to you and said, oh, you know, you know, the police are looking for you. I had never had a case where my client didn't actually pick up the phone, do what he had to do to get a hold of him. I remember when I first did this with Russell, I was kind of angry with him because he was bringing it predominantly African-American, so I used to call him a bounty hunter.

This is ABC seven cameraman Ken Bedford. He worked with us for years, going out with him to meet the people who called in to surrender and said, you know, what are you doing there, black people?

Because I think we don't need a person that's just doing this to our people. And that's how I felt initially.

And then once I began to understand what he was really doing, then I apologize and I went back and that's how we really got to be really close. Nobody else in Chicago could do this now that the newspapers, radio stations, the other television stations rush, this was Russ's world.

He could do this. I guess we comprehended that what he was doing was dangerous.

But because he didn't seem to he just didn't vibrate any fear or any anxiety.

He just took it all in stride. We did as well.

Pat Arnold says Russell once went into an abandoned building at the request of a murder suspect and that when he got inside, the suspect said that before he turned himself in, he just wanted to shoot his gun one more time.

And whenever Russ told the story, he told it the same way his head would cocked to the side.

And he said and I asked him, do you have anybody in mind? And the guy shoots, he starts, you know, he just fires one bullet into the ceiling and Russ being Russ, he says, Oh, man, that looks like fun.

Do you mind if I try it?

And so he gets the guy to hand him the gun. And then he shoots up in the ceiling until all of the bullets are gone. Now, yeah, he. He had a way with people, you know, he disarmed this guy and made himself safe. I remember one time Russ even arrest was a pilot and he took his own airplane to someplace and he picked up a guy and brought him back.

Russ's cameraman, Ken Bedford. So he was a fugitive, actually left the state and everything and went back and got this guy. Russ flew his own airplane and brought the guy back. Should it? Rescuing had guarantee the safety of more than 40 accused criminals during his career. But Gregory Hill is one of the few he literally flew into police custody. The call from Hill coming from out of state three days ago. Ewing making the 100 mile flight this morning, stopping only to tell police what he was up to.

The police have been searching for Gregory Hill for days. He told rescuing he was afraid of being shot.

Here's a recording of the two of them talking in 1984, Rashwan speaks first.

You know that you've done some things wrong. You have committed some crimes. You have committed some robberies, and you're willing to pay for that, right?

I'm willing to stand up and face what I have done and get this behind me.

Russ never disclosed where he picked up Gregory Hill. He later said in an interview that he didn't want anyone to be charged with harboring a fugitive. It wasn't the only time he used his airplane, a woman who had been evading arrest for five years, wanted in connection with two murders, called Russ and said she was ready to surrender if he could help her see her children one more time. Ross agreed he flew her to Alabama. He later told Ebony magazine, I'm sitting there realizing that I've taken this fugitive across not one but four state lines.

The woman saw her children and then returned to Chicago and turned herself in. According to public defender Mary Jane Plesac. Russ, give people the dignity of a righteous surrender. He could bring in somebody who did the worst crime imaginable and still respect the humanness of that person. And still, in fact, expect the system to treat that person as it did in its compact with its citizens by 1992, when more than 100 people had surrendered standing by rescuing. He was featured on ABC's Person of the Week.

We're very proud of your rush.

How does it feel to be a person of the week?

Well, I'm proud of that. But I must say that I'm not proud of seeing young men go to jail. I'm not proud of seeing the murder and the ridiculous, senseless killing that happened and continue to have and continue to happen what have to happen just about, oh, 10, 15 minutes ago. And it's sad.

It's unfortunate, but those things are happening. I've always said in trying to convince them to to come in and stop doing this, I use one philosophy, and that is that any kind of living is better than any kind of dying. And they respond to that sometimes. But it's still so heartrending to see a young man, 18 or 19 years old, and most of them have been teenagers to see them walk through a door when you know that they'll never come out again.

Three years after that interview, rescuing retired. He left Chicago and moved to rural Michigan, a town called Papau, his colleagues we spoke with for this story, cameraman Ken Bedford, reporter Charles Thomas and producer Pat Arnold all visited him there.

This past June, resealing died, he was 95. The entire city feels an absence because reporters like Ross Ewing don't happen anymore.

Russ was this older, gray haired, receding hairline, somewhat disheveled guy who.

It wasn't about flash and dash reporters today are wearing the company logo Rust would have on an old trench coat.

I think we all missed that kind of reporter because they were real and they did real stories. And I certainly miss him. He represented an era that's gone criminalist created by Lauren S'pore and me. Nidia Wilson is our senior producer. Susanna Roberson is our system producer, audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Michelle Harris and Jim Haverkamp. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at this is criminal dot com. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show.

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