Armanda Shackelford was able to hug her son, Gerald Reed, for the first time in 29 years over the Easter holiday.
That’s because Reed was released from Stateville Correctional Center last week after Gov. JB Pritzker commuted his sentence.
“This is a dream come true,” Reed said. “I always told my family members I’m going to come home, but I was wondering when.”
Reed was convicted of a double murder on Chicago’s South Side in 1990. But the 57-year-old is one of several former inmates who say detectives under Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge beat them into false confessions.
“There are over 100 different individuals that remain to linger behind our prison walls. Shame on you Chicago,” said Mark Clements, another torture survivor and member of the Chicago Torture Justice Center.
Both Reed and his mother hope to work to get his friends released.
“I love my son, don’t get me wrong, but the fight wasn’t just for him,” Schackelford said.
Reed says he wants to “pass the torch” and help the next mother whose son was wrongly incarcerated.
Pritzker did not pardon Reed, although Reed hopes to eventually get his conviction overturned.
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