"The American Gulag"
That's how radio host Mitch Berg put it on his blog, and he's right.
There's a secret interrogation facility where Chicago police "disappear" Americans, "rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site," writes Spencer Ackerman for The Guardian:
The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago's west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
•Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
•Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
•Shackling for prolonged periods.
•Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility.
•Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square "interview room" and later pronounced dead.
...Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.
"It's sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place - if you can't find a client in the system, odds are they're there," said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.
Chicago civil-rights attorney Flint Taylor said Homan Square represented a routinization of a notorious practice in local police work that violates the fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution.
"This Homan Square revelation seems to me to be an institutionalization of the practice that dates back more than 40 years," Taylor said, "of violating a suspect or witness' rights to a lawyer and not to be physically or otherwise coerced into giving a statement."
I'm with Berg -- not that I spend "tourist dollar(s)" in Chicago. But see the latter bit of that line from Berg:
Much as I love Chicago, I won't spend another tourist dollar there until those responsible for Homan Square are frog-walked out of their offices and put into Federal custody.And it'll be interesting to see what other such places pop up around the country.
This is what we get in the wake of all the Americans going so quietly and politely as their Fourth Amendment rights were taken from them by TSA thugs at the airport. What all of you who did that without complaint told the bureaucracy and the police-ocracy is that they can get away with it. And to keep doing what they're doing and go a little further and a little further.
+ WR Mead.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at February 25, 2015 5:25 AM
Sounds like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 25, 2015 7:45 AM
This is just a more "formal" version of what occurs in many prisons around the U.S. It's not uncommon in some cities for prisoners to go for hours without being booked (the official reason is manpower shortage) or holding people without counsel for up to a day.
I agree that Homan Square sounds like an egregious and particularly outrageous version of the same, but the treatment within its walls is practiced elsewhere.
Kevin at February 25, 2015 9:06 AM
This is what half a century of one-party rule gets you.
Cousin Dave at February 25, 2015 9:22 AM
Thank goodness that community has been well organized by the most brilliant president we've ever had (/sarc)
BlogDog at February 25, 2015 10:54 AM
Goddamned Democrats, always forcing the cops to kidnap and interrogate people in secret warehouses.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 25, 2015 1:08 PM
"Goddamned Democrats, always forcing the cops to kidnap and interrogate people in secret warehouses."
You miss the point. If it had been a half-century of unchallenged Republican rule, the result would be much the same. Absolute power leads to corruption, absolutely.
Cousin Dave at February 25, 2015 6:47 PM
Gog, you miss the point. If it had been a half-century of unchallenged Republican rule, the result would be much the same. Absolute power leads to corruption, absolutely.
Cousin Dave at February 25, 2015 6:49 PM
My apologies for the double post. I'm having some kind of browser caching deal. Posts I make don't show up until I do a force-refresh.
Cousin Dave at February 25, 2015 6:50 PM
Thanks, Cousin Dave, for a moment there I thought perhaps cops committed crimes in Republican areas, but I see now this is not the case.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 26, 2015 11:44 AM
C'mon, Gog, that is not what I said. In fact, I was trying to say the opposite. Any place you have machine politics like you do in Chicago, this kind of stuff is going to happen. I can point to plenty of examples of crap like this happening in the South in the '50s and '60s, in what would be thought of now as Republican-dominated rule (it wasn't then because party dynamics were different). My point is, when you have unchallenged one-party rule, this is the result. It doesn't matter which specific party it is.
Cousin Dave at February 27, 2015 8:46 AM
1. The timing is interesting. Chicago had a mayoral election on the 24th, and incumbent Rahm Emmanuel has been forced into a runoff.
2. The Guardian is a hard left paper. It's what MSNBC would be like if it was a paper and British. I personally do not just take their word for it.
3. Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. --Erwin Knoll, editor, "The Progressive"
Here's an anonymous cop's blog entry about this. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2015/02/amnesty-international.html
Here's a follow-up. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2015/02/protests-today-at-homan-square.html
There are problems, but the Guardian calling it a "gulag" is overstated.
Nate Whilk at February 28, 2015 1:07 PM
Another followup. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2015/03/massive-protests.html
Also, local NPR station website debunks Guardian. http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-site-mischaracterized-111629
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the past few years WBEZ reporters and other journalists have been to the facility for tours and interviews as well as press conferences.
The Chicago Sun-Times’ Frank Main says reporters on the police beat know Homan Square. He’s visited 20 or 30 times during his career. ... “The reasons I’ve been there is going for essentially ‘show and tells’ where the police will show huge amounts of drugs that they’ve seized in various cases. And in those situations you’ll have lots of media; television cameras, radio,” he said. Main said Homan Square is a secured site. Visitors need to show ID and give a reason for their visit. “There’s some sensitive police bureaus there," he said. "For example, there’s the organized crime bureau which runs gang investigations and drug investigations. And a lot of people in those units are undercover.”
Nate Whilk at March 1, 2015 2:32 PM
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