A Cook County jury this week convicted a Dixmoor police commander of aggravated battery and official misconduct for dragging a 66-year-old woman into the police station and slamming her into a wall multiple times.
The October 2019 encounter between Ronald Burge Jr. and Carla Bourgouis, 66, was captured on multiple surveillance cameras, and spectators in the courtroom winced as they saw the woman’s head hit the wall.
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Jurors deliberated less than two hours Wednesday afternoon, capping off a two-day trial before Judge Ursula Walowski, records show. Burge was convicted on two counts of aggravated battery in a public place and one count of official misconduct. Jurors acquitted him, however, on two counts of aggravated battery of a person older than 60, apparently finding that Burge was not aware of her age at the time.
Prosecutors have said Bourgouis went to the Dixmoor police station after the arrest of her grandson, and Burge got into a dispute with her and the boy’s father apparently trying to take cellphone photos. The father was detained, and Bourgouis fled the station. She testified this week that she never heard anyone tell her she was under arrest as she left the building.
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Burge followed her outside, grabbed her around the shoulders and dragged her back in. Burge, testifying on his own behalf, told jurors Bourgouis scratched his face and injured his groin outside the station. And he denied ever slamming her against the wall, saying that instead he had pressed a pressure point near her ear, and her head jerked back and hit the wall.
Burge joined the Dixmoor police force as a part-time officer in 2017. By the time of the October 2019 encounter with Bourgouis, he was already commander, and prosecutors noted on cross-examination that the person who promoted him was his police-chief father, Ronald Burge Sr.
The elder Burge had a controversial, decadeslong career in law enforcement, especially during several stints as Harvey’s police chief. After resigning in 1995, he was charged with official misconduct after golf clubs that had been confiscated by Harvey police were found in the trunk of his car and he was found with a blank check from the department’s drug forfeiture account, authorities said. A judge later quashed his arrest, saying Harvey officers didn’t have cause to stop and search his car.
Repeated attempts to reach Dixmoor officials to determine Burge’s status with the department were unsuccessful.
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
