CNN anchor Omar Jimenez’s latest project for the network took an internship, a plethora of conversations and a decade to produce.
But the effort was worth it, he told TheWrap in a recent interview, to launch “Tortured Justice with Omar Jimenez,” CNN’s latest podcast. The three-part series examines how the Chicago Police Department, led by Commander Jon Burge and a group of detectives known as the “Midnight Crew,” tortured more than 110 Black men between 1970 and 1991, exposing the systematic issues within the city’s law enforcement apparatus that have contributed to significant distrust in its police department.
All three episodes premiere on podcast services on Wednesday. The project comes just after President Trump temporarily set his sights on sending the National Guard into the city due to its perceived ineffectiveness in combating crime. The podcast follows some victims, such as Chicago resident James Gibson, and came such as others received their final multimillion-dollar settlements earlier this year.
The Chicago Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the series. Burge died in 2018.
The coincidental timing didn’t faze Jimenez, who said the podcast only amplifies the lack of faith people have had in its police officers. (The Black and African American community has consistently held the most distrust for the police department over the last seven years, according to a Chicago PD sentiment dashboard.)
“I was out in Chicago, and I covered the sort-of threat to send in the National Guard,” Jimenez told TheWrap, saying he met with Chicago Police Commander Larry Snelling. “What he did say was that trying to police communities that have historically distrusted the police is one of their main priorities. He recognizes it’s an issue. He knows it’s an issue they’re continuing to work on today, and based on this podcast, people will see it’s an issue that’s been a problem for decades.”
The podcast joins CNN’s suite of “CNN Presents” podcasts, which includes the recent series “Persuadable with Donie O’Sullivan” and John King’s “All Over The Map.” The collection of shows, such as longtime anchor Anderson Cooper’s grief-focused series “All There Is” and “The Assignment with Audie Cornish,” has seen CNN let its talent pursue passion projects or experiment with different ways of conveying their reporting.
“Omar’s reporting is moving, thorough, and vital,” Steve Lickteig, CNN Podcasts’ executive producer, told TheWrap in a statement. “Over three episodes, he draws listeners in while pushing them to reckon with the larger implications of this devastating story. This installment of CNN Presents reflects the best of CNN — long-form storytelling that lets our journalists spotlight the issue they care about with depth and power.”
Jimenez stumbled upon the case as a research investigative intern at the Chicago Innocence Project while a student at Northwestern University. After interviewing someone who was subjected to the Midnight Crew’s torturous methods, he said, the story consumed him — simply by its sheer scale yet minimal coverage.
“Nobody seemed to know, and so that was sort of the beginning spark,” he said. “Over a decade later, when I had the opportunity to tell that story in a more nuanced and intentional way, I really jumped at the opportunity.”
Jimenez initially pitched the story in April, envisioning it in a traditional video format, one that may have aired through CNN’s linear channels — a pathway that has become increasingly antiquated as cable news networks, including CNN, embrace digital and audio storytelling.
But as the scope of the project expanded, such as the length of the victims’ stories and the need for archival footage, the limitations of cable news’ reliance on commercial breaks reared their head, as did the desire to time the project’s air date to when one victim would receive a settlement. The team ultimately decided to produce the series as a podcast.
It was a decision that Jimenez, who only had minimal experience working with audio storytelling, fully supported, as he felt his background in producing TV packages complemented the audio team’s ability to craft an audio-forward narrative. He then spent the summer personally reaching out to and interviewing nearly every character in the story, transferring the material he wanted to use to the audio team, who helped build the story in the format. (The series will have some video component, Jimenez said.)
“When I’m out shooting a story and I’m turning something in for either the evening or for later in the week, I think just the ability to find the emotion in the person I’m interviewing, to find what the most relevant information, some of that everyday news storytelling…I think really added a different lens that, I can tell you, the audio team appreciated me bringing my TV experience into this.”
Jimenez said he was continuing to monitor the cases of victims as they worked their way through litigation. Still, the lessons he learned from his summer of reporting helped open his eyes to “how a system can sort of individually look the other way,” opting instead to pay millions of dollars to victims whose time was taken away from them.
“That is the modern-day form of justice,” Jimenez said. “‘Hey, I’m sorry we messed up. You’re out now. You have your certificate of innocence. We’re going to pay you this amount of money. So sorry. Hope we’re cool.’ When, like, that is not sufficient. You talk to these people, they would rather not have the money and have had their freedom.”
