A man who said he was forced to confess to a brutal 1982 rape testified Thursday how the beating at the hands of two Chicago police officer dehumanized him.
“They didn’t care what I was, I didn’t feel human anymore,” Stanley Wrice said.
Six years ago, Wrice had his conviction overturned by a Cook County judge after serving 31 years in prison. Wrice was serving a 100-year sentence for his alleged role the gang rape and assault that took place in his South Side home when he was freed.
But a second judge in 2014 refused to grant Wrice a “certificate of innocence” because there was “substantial evidence” that he participated in the crime. Wrice’s claims of innocence is now central to a civil trial, which kicked off last week at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Wrice, who is African American, said the white officers — Sgt. John Byrne and Detective Peter Dignan — shouted racial slurs at him while beating him with a flashlight and a rubber hose wrapped in tape.
Byrne and Dignan served under notorious Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.
Wrice said he was asked to tell the officers what he knew about the rape and when he denied being involved, the onslaught of abuse intensified. At one point, Wrice said his arms were raised above his head and handcuffed to an iron bar, as on officer kicked his legs open and started hitting him in the groin with the flashlight.
When he couldn’t take the beating any longer, an assistant state’s attorney entered the interrogation room and began asking him questions. Wrice said it was then he broke down and said he was involved in the crime as the two officers stared him down.
“I didn’t want to go back in the basement no more,” he said.
Wrice said he had blood in his urine for almost a week before he was able to see a doctor.
Wrice’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, presented medical records in court that documented the bruises, including one on Wrice’s forehead that was inflicted after he was struck by the flashlight.
Wrice also testified about the abuse he endured while he was incarcerated in a maximum-security prison for those three decades.
The now 65-year-old said it has been difficult for him to find a job and adjust to society.
