york where baseball was created which is wrong. >> thank you and that is our show for today. i'm david schuster in for ali velshi. thanks for joining me, the news continues here on al jazeera america. >> on "america tonight" shots ring out and the debate over gun violence and gun control echo again. away from the headlines "america tonight's" sarah hoye considers the high cost of a gub shot. >> what woulgunshot. >> what would you say at the end of the day was the cost? >> about a million dollars, it was really expensive. >> also ahead, house of screams.

the torture that took place inside a chicago police station. "america tonight's" lisa fletcher with the victims forced to confess and the truth that set them free. >> what does that say? >> i'm a free man. not on papers, that i was actually innocent of this case. innocent. >> good evening, from chicago. a city struggling against an onslaught of violence by criminals and sometimes by the police. in the final weeks of this year, the murder toll here continues to climb. eclipsing the gains made over the last two years. but the focus now has veered toward the chicago police department itself, and towards the city's mayor, rahm emanuel. the spark that ignited the current crisis was the shooting death of young la quan mcdonald at the hands of a police officer who has since been charged with

murder. but "america tonight's" lisa fletcher found the chicago police department's history of misconduct goes far deeper and is much darker. >> reporter: ronald kitchen never thought he'd hear these words. >> we have ways of making niggers talk. >> kitchen was not being held against his will by men in white hoods or neonazis. he was in the hands of the chicago pd. >> what i'm going to do i'm going to introduce you to the telephone book and onightstick, get this telephone book and this stick and put on top of your head and he just beat the (bleep) out of it. i'm sitting here and as he telling me telling me you did this we know you did this. >> this was a highly publicized quintuple murder but when police picked up kitchen they told him it was for auto theft. after hours of interrogation at this former police station,

kitchen said he realized the auto theft arrest was a means the an end. >> he tells me stand up nigger, stand up to the wall, handcuffed me in the back, he put that nightstick between my legs. and he put it against the wall and he lifts me up off my feats feet and he grinds. and he grinds and he grinds and he grinds. >> for more than 16 hours, kitchen says, a revolving door of officers beat and interrogated him until he had no fight left. >> i said okay okay okay, i'll do whatever you want me to do. whatever you want me to do i'll do it. >> you'll sign a confession? >> i'll sign. >> solely on his confession and the testimony of a prison informant who was later discredited, kitchen was sentenced to death.

it wasn't until years later that kitchen realized he wasn't alone. >> these men supposed to be protectors of the law forced me to admit something i didn't do, knowing i didn't do it is willing to see me die for this? that doesn't make no better than the man who is out there robbing and killing. a premeditated murderer. >> kitchen's case tragic as an isolated incident. terrifying as a pattern and practice of some members of the chicago police department. who according to legal experts tortured more than 100 men, mostly african american, from 1971 to 1992. >> the city tried keep these reports from being released. >> in 1989 working on a tip, investigative journalist john conroy discovered hauntingly similar reports from suspects claiming to be tortured by chicago police. >> give us a sense of the type of torture that was used by the officers. >> well, the most well-known is

electric shock. and they were as far as we know three electrical devices one was hand crank one was cattle prod one was i believe an ex tint medical device, called a violent ray machine still on sale on s andm websites. russian roulette was played, mock execution is one of the worst part of torture. >> ray received anonymous letters from someone when i the chicago pd corroborating the allegations. he eventually broke the story wide open. conroy had discovered a widespread pattern of violence and racism at the department at the center of it all was one man. >> this huge white man got on top of a desk, and literally kicked my ass out of a chair. mind you, i still have my hands

behind my back, handcuffed to a hoop in the wall. at the time i didn't know who he was. found out he was john burge. >> john burge. creating a culture of abuse to force confessions. by 1993, in a swirl of media headlines an internal police review board determined burge had used torture and fired him. but conroy says burge isn't the only one to blame. >> so many systems failed here that blaming it on him is really a mistake. he didn't need to torture but he joined a police force that was given obroo you at tha to bruta. >> why were you so tenacious though? >> people were going to die and

nobody was doing anything. there were dozen men on death row who were there on the basis of suspect confessions. >> ronald kitchen was one of them. he spent 21 years locked up. 13 of those on death row. but in the wake of mounting torture allegations, governor george ryan made an unprecedented decision, to clear all 167 of the state's death row inmates and modify their sentences to life in prison. in 2009 after spending half his life behind bars, kitchen was exonerated. >> you were given a certificate of innocence. >> correct. >> can you show it to us? >> what does that say? >> i'm a free aman. on papers that i was actually innocent of this case. innocent. >> but in a cruel twist, the woman who believed in that

innocence, all along, would never get to celebrate ronald's freedom. >> well, my mother was, that's my soldier. when nobody else listened or believed, she fought. so when i come home, she has dementia. she has dementia. so i'm free now she locked up. in her head. i go to the house, she didn't even -- she couldn't even recognize me. she's staring at me. she's staring at me. i'm what going on ma. she says hey baby. i say you know who i am? is she says i'm waiting for ryan to come home. >> ronald says he was tortured. >> he begin to hit me in my

arms. he called me nigger-boy. my genitals was grabbed and squeezed. it was squeezed so hard, squeezed so hard, that i literally thought that my skin was going to bust. so i told them, because he told me you going to cooperate boy? you going to cooperate? and i told him yes. he let go. >> mark was released with 28 years time served. and is now a leader in the movement to hold the city accountable. he worries that it's not over because victims say officers who participated in the torture are still on the force. >> so his legacy of torture in your opinion continues? >> oh yes. it's bigger than john burge,

it's way bigger than john burge. >> this is one of the stations that yo john clemons call a tore chamber. chicago police have settled on at least $65 million in claims. >> i'll assert my fifth amendment right. >> he spent four and a half years behind bars for perjury and obstruction of justice. today he's a free man and he still receives his police pension. advocates pressured the city for decades for more accountability. this year chicago became the first city in the nation to

approve a reparation ordinance for victims of police abuse and torture. ronald kitchen isn't eligible for reparations because he already received a multimillion dollar civil settlement from the city of chicago. but what do you make of this reparations deal in chicago right now? >> reparations. so you took these guys' lives, took them away from them, their moms because half their moms is dead. even kids passed away when you were incarcerated. you took everything sacred and good to them, you took this away, you give them a band-aid over this big-ass wound. >> what ronald kitchen is

focused on now is list family and their future. while not dwelling on the past hopes of the price he paid was not in vein. >> the thing is let's talk about it, let's expose them for what they are and make changes. what it's about, making changes. >> lisa fletcher, al jazeera. >> next, the cost of survival. the death count may be down. but that doesn't mean an end to the violence. later: the late shift, chronicling chicago's crisis one sad story at a time.

>> here in chicago the anger of activists have been directed in many ways at the city's key political leaders who are accused of hiding police misconduct to protect their own careers. that's not whole story here. yes, the number of murders in the city is higher than it's been in the past two years and murder is the key barometer both here in chicago and in many other cities but "america tonight's" sarah hoye found this obsession of body count ignores in many ways a more disturbing trend, the increasing number on

survivors. >> it was july 27th, 2005, was a nice day. was a hot day. i got paid that day, it was a great day. some guys was outside my building asking me questions you know about the job. we were talking, the shots rang out. >> derrick owens was just 21 years old when a stranger shot him twice while he was on his way home from work. >> worst pain i ever felt in my life. it rang out and it was like hot lava. >> doctors revealed his greatest fear, he was paralyzed, would never walk again. >> i was waited on hand and foot almost like a child. >> gun violence, often

overlooked those who live and the enormous cost that goes with it. gunshot wounds are the third highest cause of spinal cord injuries. long term health care costs, easily going into the millions. owens was u uninsured, remainder disability and medicaid benefits. >> what would you say was the total bill from start to now? >> looking like at almost $10 million. >> 10 million? >> $10 million seriously. i accumulated my first year almost $2 million in bills, back and after the initial surgery. i lost a major organ i was back and forth under a lot of drugs lot of machinery. i had pick lines in my arms, sent home with home health care nurses.

>> dr. james doherty was director of the same hospital that owens was taken. doherty says the majorities of people who are shot live. >> if you look at the numbers from chicago roughly one fifth of the patients who are shot are homicides but there's a large population of individuals who survive gunshot wounds. and beyond the injuries, many of these patients that have had long term health problems. >> a university of chicago crime study puts the cost ever gun violence makes wide $100 billion a year, with shots in the windy city about $2.5 billion or 25,000 per household. >> total hospital bill of over $1 million. >> over $1 million? >> over $1 million. in that situation that patient has no insurance essentially that's free charity care

provided by the hospital. >> by one estimate annual firearm injuries end up cause costing $645 per gun. and doherty says, that's not who you feel is paying the price. >> out there there's the thought that those who get shot deserve it. but the majority of our patients are not in gangs and don't relate to a gang involved incident. most are innocent victims. >> in may, michael was driving in the suburbs, when he heard the window crack. >> it felt like someone had punched me in my left shoulder in the back. and i -- but i knew it wasn't just a punch because it knocked me over and i slumped over the wheel. >> the 57-year-old father of two had been hit by a stray bullet.

>> i'm not a gang banger, i'm not a thug, i'm a teacher, you know. and i'm thinking why would someone want to shoot me? you know. and i guess i figured out it was just an act of random violence. fest. >> that bullet would leave brown without the use of his arms or legs, changing his life forever. blown taught high school math for 34 years and pastored for 17 at the church he founded with his wife. losing his place at the pull pet may prove to be the biggest cost of all. >> how hard has it been to you not to be able to minister? >> i get a little emotional when i talk about it because ministry is my life, you know and to not be able to stand there and do what god has called me to do, it just -- it's just -- i can't describe it. because it's hard wrenching.

>> it's been nearly a decade since derrick owens was shot. he lives with his sister on a modest house ton city's south side that isn't wheelchair accessible but he insists on doing a lot of stuff himself. >> i see a lot of guys in a wheelchair especially in the inglewood neighborhood. we are not defined by this wheelchair, it is said we have to go through it now. we are experiencing it. but the sun shall shine again. it definitely will. >> but the price for bullet that cut him down is one he's still paying. sarah hoye, al jazeera, chicago. >> next, night crawler. true crime on chicago's toughest streets and the man whose pictures tell the story. .

>> one more thought now about chicago and its violence. the city has a lot of history of course much of it gritty, some of it bloody. the job of chronicling that violence is one of a photojournalist, are ken. >> get what you need, get the hell out don't linger. on a 1 to 10 safety, 10 being the least safest, this is

definitely a 10. first thing i do is i turn all the radios on, see if i can hear something. i watch the 10:00 news to see if there's something i can follow up on. we're going to go to this fire on the south end. we don't know where it is yet. we know generally, not exactly where it is. clear. what was the injury? >> six-year-old, second degree burns. >> larry and i have quite a history, we go about 20 years. we've been at some crazy crazy incidents over the years together. >> spent a lot of time at night together. >> yes, in all the wrong places.

i'm going to go back to the middle are area where i like to. if i sit on the south side something will happen on the west side. this is where i sit, i can generally get anywhere in 15 minutes. this is the sit down and wait area. definitely. i do have shootings every night we have two very busy neighborhoods, the west side of chi and the south side of chicago and i spend 85% of my time in both of those areas. i did a homicide right on that street right there. about two months ago. i have been to over 1700 homicides in my career so far. in the last couple of years, the shootings have been more intense. people aren't first of all willing to turn the other cheek

anymore. there seems to be a serious problem with anger management going on. i couldn't even describe to you how minor some of these infractions might be. but all of a sudden a gun comes out. they aren't necessarily aiming, they are hitting sideways, and you can't hit the broadside of a barn shooting sideways. >> it was important for us as a news organization in the news industry to be aware that there was violence occurring out there. i think we'd come in and we'd look at the day, and wouldn't look at what was behind us, because we weren't there. and ken kind of changed all that because he brought crime into the newsroom in the morning. >> large group of people fighting by the md bank. >> chicago is a city where if it's not in my backyard then i

don't want to be bothered. and part of what ken has done and what we're trying to do is, it is in your backyard, even if you live ten miles from where it happened. even if it isn't in your backyard we will all pay the cost of violence no matter what happens. >> i still love chicago. i worry for chicago. but -- i just hope that they can get it under control. i really do. you know. they need to hire a lot more cops. you know, it's a good city. hello. four shootings. four shootings and a foot-chase. they brought me to tears earlier. we were doing a whole long interview and we were asked questions are you concerned about the city?

like a little girl crying. >> that's our view from the streets of chicago on "america tonight." tell us what you think at aljazeera.com/americatonight. talk to us on twitter or facebook and come back, we'll have more of "america tonight" tomorrow.

>> rare agreement. the u.n. security council unanimously backs a plan for settlement in syria. presidential promises. president obama again vows to close the guantanamo bay prison and intensify fight against i.s.i.l. vote for change. rwandans have overwhelmingly