Call Russ Ewing

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1:01camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Hi, it's Phoebe. This month, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes of all time as we're out on tour celebrating 10 years of criminal. In the next few days, we'll be in Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Dublin, and London. You can find all of our tour dates and get tickets at thisiscriminal.com slash live. We really hope we'll see you. We're also sharing weekly updates from the road with our Criminal Plus members.

1:38We're recording episodes in hotel rooms, in cars, backstage, during lunch breaks. To listen, sign up for Criminal Plus in your Apple Podcast criminal feed or by going to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. Whether you've heard today's episode before or it's new to you, Russ Ewing's story is well worth a listen. Here's the show. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Please use discretion. I can't begin to tell you how violent it was. This is former Chicago television reporter Charles Thomas. There was a detective commander named John Burge. And John Burge, he and his group of rogue detectives were investigating crimes, homicides in particular.

2:29They 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 Burge was doing and his detectives were doing to people. In 1970, a 22-year-old named John Burge 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.

3:32They're torturing me. And that's why he gave a confession. Mary Jane Placek 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 time, and it's a disgrace within the criminal justice system. It's been well documented. The so-called Burge era, et cetera, like that. We had pictures. We had everything. My office always filed multiple motions. John Burge and his detectives were known as the Midnight Crew, or Burge's ass-kickers. Federal prosecutors later alleged that the group tortured suspects by beating them, suffocating them, burning them, and administering electric shocks.

4:30John Burge was white. Most of the suspects were black. A man named Shadid Mumin, who was incarcerated in an Illinois state prison, later testified that Burge 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, Burge pulled the trigger two more times. The man refused to confess. And so Burge pressed a plastic typewriter cover over his face until he became unconscious. Burge repeated the process two more times until the man did confess.

5:24Things 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 led back, much of the torture allegations led back to Detective Commander John Burge and his group of detectives. The full extent of John Burge's misconduct didn't become public knowledge until later.

6:14He 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, Burge was convicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He lied under oath, denying that he 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 to 57 victims who'd been tortured by John Burge and his so-called Midnight Crew. That was an addition to more than$100 million the city of Chicago had already paid in reparations, settlements, and legal fees stemming from police abuse.

7:14John Burge died in Florida in 2018. Back in the height of the Burge era in the Chicago Police Department, long before there were cell phone cameras, there was a black television news reporter named Russ Ewing. 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 Russ Ewing. He was right in the middle of all this. Russ Ewing 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.

8:07I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

8:18He 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. Russ Ewing 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.

9:19What he did is he shined a light on it. Everybody talks about transparency. Those days it was shine a light on it. It's simple as this. When you know someone's watching, you are good. Public defender Mary Jane Plasek. 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 ABC7 Chicago producer, Pat Arnold.

10:20Russ 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 he did it.

10:53We'll be right back.

11:05Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? introducing Odoo it's the only business software you'll ever need it's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more and the best part Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost that's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch so why not you? try Odoo for free at odoo.com that's O-D-O-O dot com

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12:43Check out in 15 minutes or less per line. Visit T-Mobile.com. Russ Ewing was born on December 28, 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. Russ 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 Russ said in an interview that white firefighters who misbehaved or were, quote, alcoholics, were sent to work with the black firefighters as punishment.

13:36There 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. Russ 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.

14:36Russ got his first job in TV in the mid-'60s. WMAQ, Channel 5. He was hired to deliver film, but Russ 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. Russ 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.

15:33And then he started doing something different, Something nobody else was doing. I think the very first time just came by accident. Here's Russ Ewing 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 that 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.

16:15Russ Leder said that the police told him, we'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 just talked about using a philosophy that any kind of living is better than any kind of dying. After we talked about that 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.

17:00They 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 WMAQ Channel 5 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 Russ Ewing. They'd seen him on TV. The police contacted Russ. The cameraman said what finally swayed James Shelton and Sidney Carver to surrender was Russ'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.

17:52Another call came in just a week later. And after that, it snowballed. Over the years, Russ Ewing 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 Russ, you could tell him anything, he could keep a secret, it was just like a no-brainer. or 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.

18:46He often got in the police car and rode along to the station when the suspects were afraid of being alone with the police. Would he always stand close to the suspect as he was leading them in? Absolutely. No, he held their arm. No, he usually locked arms with his suspects. Because they were his brothers. They were his people. They were his neighbors. 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.

19:33He 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 Russ Ewing. 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.

20:06The touching of the suspect, the affirming that you are not a pariah. You know, 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 Russ Ewing.

20:37This is Eyewitness News. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? I'm Fahey Flynn, 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 Mo Shubh hostage. He said he wanted to talk to Channel 7's Russ Ewing. Deputy Chief Charles Pepp 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 had promised that police would not use handcuffs.

21:42All the way to police headquarters, he kept repeating, all he wanted was a job, and a settlement that he felt he had coming from the lawsuit.

21:52Thank you again, Russ. Russ Ewing, a rare and remarkable human being, as evidenced again today. During his 16 years as a reporter here in Chicago, his hometown, 31 wanted murderers have volunteered themselves into the custody of Rush Ewing.

22:15We'll be right back.

22:43We'll be right back. That absolutely slays.

23:16Iowa Debris, Julie Kaffner, with Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson. Ella McKay, in theaters December 12th. Get tickets now. Did anyone ever criticize him for helping the police? I spoke to someone the other day. You mean, like, was he a rat or was he, you know, that sort of, you know, are you talking about was he a snitch? Was he ever criticized for that sort of thing? Yeah. He wasn't helping the police. Public defender Mary Jane Placik. 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.

24:01I 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 Russ, I was kind of angry with him because he was bringing in predominantly African Americans. I used to call him a bounty hunter. This is ABC7 cameraman Ken Bedford. He worked with Russ for years, going out with him to meet the people who called in to surrender. I said, you know, what are you doing to our black people? Because I think we don't need a person that's 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 apologized and I went back.

24:46And that's how we really got to be really close. Nobody else in Chicago could do this, not at the newspapers, the radio stations, the other television stations. Russ, 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 Russ 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.

25:35And whenever Russ told this story, he told it the same way. His head would cock 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 a guy to hand him the gun, and then he shoots up in the ceiling until all of the bullets are gone. Now, yeah, he had a way with people. You know, he disarmed this guy and made himself safe. I remember one time, Russ even, Russ was a pilot, and he took his own airplane to someplace, and he picked up a guy and brought him back.

26:42Russ's cameraman, Ken Bedford. So he was a fugitive, actually left the state and everything, and Russ went back and got this guy. Russ flew his own airplane and brought the guy back. He sure did. Russ Ewing had guaranteed 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 had been searching for Gregory Hill for days. He told Russ Ewing he was afraid of being shot.

27:18Here's a recording of the two of them talking in 1984. Russ Ewing 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'd 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.

28:11Russ 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 Plasik, Russ gave 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 Russ Ewing, he was featured on ABC's Person of the Week.

29:21We're very proud of you, Russ. How does it feel to be 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 killings that happen. And continue to happen. And continue to happen. Two happened just about, oh, 10 or 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 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 heart-rendering 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.

30:16Three years after that interview, Russ Ewing retired. He left Chicago and moved to rural Michigan, a town called Pawpaw. His colleagues we spoke with for the story, cameraman Ken Bedford, reporter Charles Thomas, and producer Pat Arnold, all visited him there. Russ Ewing died in 2019. He was 95. The entire city feels an absence because reporters like Russ Ewing don't happen anymore. Russ was this older, gray-haired, receding hairline, somewhat disheveled guy who wasn't about flash and dash. Reporters today are wearing the company logo Russ would have on an old trench coat I think we all miss 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