Unbelievable as it may seem, The Guardian is reporting today that the Chicago Police Department operates its own “Black Site” where people are taken, tortured and held in shackles without notification of family or the ability to have a lawyer present. One man is alleged to have died there after having been beaten. Shades of the “Disappeared” from the days a military junta ruled Argentina, but its happening here and now in a major city in the United States, and the place is known as “Homan Square.”
The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, 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.
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. […]
At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.
Activities alleged to have occurred there include the following:
- Detainees are kept out of the official police booking system.
- Persons in custody are often shackled for long periods of time.
- Attorneys are denied access to their clients
- Frequent beatings, causing head injuries
- Juveniles as young as 15 have been housed there
The facility also houses military-style vehicles. Defense attorneys, however are well aware of its existence:
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.
And just being a protestor can get you arrested and sent there, as Jacob Church, an activist who opposed the NATO Summit in 2012, discovered when he was arrested by police and “disappeared” there:
Jacob Church learned about Homan Square the hard way. On May 16 2012, he and 11 others were taken there after police infiltrated their protest against the Nato summit. Church says officers cuffed him to a bench for an estimated 17 hours, intermittently interrogating him without reading his Miranda rights to remain silent. It would take another three hours – and an unusual lawyer visit through a wire cage – before he was finally charged with terrorism-related offenses at the nearby 11th district station, where he was made to sign papers, fingerprinted and photographed.
Church is now on parole. He and two other co-defendants were found not guilty of terrorism charges at their trial, but were convicted on two lesser offenses: “possessing an incendiary device and the misdemeanor of “mob action”.” Church was the only one of the three willing to talk to the Guardian’s reporters. The others refused fearing retaliation from police if they spoke about their experiences at Homan Square.
It is outrageous that the federal government operates such “black sites” around the world. That one would exist in a major American city, however, run by that City’s own police department is more than outrageous to me. It’s downright terrifying. Who knows if other police departments around the country have their own Homan Squares where anyone of us could be deprived of our constitutional rights with impunity for any reason, or no reason at all.
Please read the Guardian’s article about this domestic black site run by the Chicago PD in its entirety. I assure you, it is well worth the time and effort. Then ask yourself, if it is happening there, where else in our country might also be operating such sinister and illegal detention sites?
Parts of this story don’t add up. I have been a prosecutor and a defense attorney.
If that had been my client I would have been screaming bloody murder. I would have filed a writ in Federal Court. It makes no sense this would be this quiet unless Chicago Defense attorneys or idiots or complicit.
Sounds like you didn’t read the article, or this post, fully.
I did.
There would or should be lawsuits galore being filed. If you beat someone up in custody the victim has a lawsuit against you. And there are plenty of lawyers willing to take it on contingency. There is even a class action lawsuit to be made here if you know your stuff.
So you arrest someone and you don’t book them? So this means you don’t file charges. What is the point – shear harassment?
The story doesn’t make sense on many levels.
You need evidence to bring to a jury. You know that. the “blue wall” protects them.
a civil case you need the testimony of the victim and the physical evidence of their abuse.
Not a tough case to bring.
You have to convince the jury. you are a lawyer and I’m not patronizing you, but I’ve been on civil jury, they are not easy to convince despite what insurance salesmen tell you. Many will not believe that police did the damage, others will believe it but think the victim deserved it (i.e. tea party types).
What’s the point? Turning detainees into informants. The point of all torture.
There are few cases because this is an “anti-gang” unit and detainees depend on public defenders. There are few cases because lawyers who work on contingency are blocked from entering the facility, knowing who is in there, or being able to talk to them.
The folks who refuse to become informants are mysteriously released (and don’t file cases because (1) they are relieved to be out of there and (2) don’t want to be taken back as retribution). Or the CPD makes the charges stick (sometimes the person did commit a crime or the jury can be effectively manipulated to think they did) and the person winds up with a prison record with gang-listing overtones.
For the cops who enjoy their work there, it must be a sense of sheer harassment. A place where there are no safe words.
Your explanation doesn’t make sense.
If they are being tortured attorneys are going to know about it. Words gets around. A lawyer on contingency doesn’t need to see them in the facility as long as you have evidence after the fact. They aren’t filing a criminal compliant, they are filing a civil one.
Make no mistake, there is big money in these cases.
The people they are picking up are probably going to be in the criminal system eventually. And they are going to tell their defense attorney.
I don’t buy most of this story.
How long did this go on? And what was the ultimate price this bad cop paid for all the damage he inflicted upon detainees, including that the torture was instrumental in getting wrongful convictions with death penalties?
While my few encounters with police have all been nothing but positive, doesn’t mean I can close my eyes to the evidence of not uncommon police abuses and much of that is significant abuse.
It’s the evidence part that is difficult on a case-by-case basis. The article talked to a number of local defense attorneys about why it is so difficult to bring cases.
What they didn’t mention is the corrupt state court system in Chicago, the judges before which you bring cases have sufficient power in shaping the jury instructions to order the jury to turn day into night.
Likely, because of this article, there will begin to be big money in cases out of Homan Square–to the point that the state will likely do something legislatively to indemnify the City of Chicago.
They get away holding people out of booking by delivering a charge within 48 hours (state law on prompt process). That gives them 48 hours to do anything they want without consequences.
I suspect some attorneys do know about it and have reasons for not taking them on. Winning in a stacked system is not a slam-dunk even with the possibility of large awards.
In Chicago for some people the system isn’t working no matter how much you want to believe that it is.
And no, someone who is being abused is not necessarily going to tell their defense attorney if they have expectations of injustice that has conditioned them all of their short life.
The fact that you say “I don’t buy most of this story.” illustrates the problem that people who have been there have bringing a convincing civil case.
My suspicion is that some level of this violation of stated law is endemic to one extent or another in all specialized “gang units”. Chicago and some other big cities have sufficient corruption of their criminal justice system to take it to a different level. If I were investigating this in other cities, my short list would be Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Maricopa County, Arizona, Albuquerque, Seattle, Oakland, Saint Louis City and County. And I would expect that not all of them would be as serious offenders as Chicago.
The fact that you say “I don’t buy most of this story.” illustrates the problem that people who have been there have bringing a convincing civil case.
It reminds me of people refusing to believe the Republican platform was really that extreme when it was explained. I have a hard time believing this, too, and I don’t have fladem’s legal background. I just don’t want to believe it because it’s horrible.
Maricopa County has to be worse. After all, they have Torquemada as sheriff.
where’s TarheelDem?
At home watching the snow, Thank God.
The first of the NATO 3 finished his jail sentence last month. He was the one most implicated by the prosecution in the trial because he actually touched the beer bottle after the undercover cop poured gasoline into it and plugged it to with a rag. That convicted three people because of the way the judge framed the instructions to the jury and allowed and restricted evidence in the case. Even the Sun-Time reporter ripped into the judge’s manipulation of the case. The jury delivered the least they could and still abide with the judge’s instructions. And the judge maxed the sentencing, given the jury’s verdict.
There are two of the NATO 3 finishing their sentences in separate prisons. The one with the longest sentence has a disease that affects behavior and has drawn additional solitary confinement as a result. He has also come out as trans-gender female.
So there are likely additional stories out of that yet to come. From the perspective of white folks.
Second the bigger story is what this “gang investigation unit” has actually been doing and what its results have been. And how it has affected the black and Hispanic communities in Chicago. Given the history of the CPD and its relationships with gangs of all ethnicities, there is likely a huge scandal there that will either be uncovered of once again covered up.
Third, this comes right before the re-coronation of Rahm Emanuel (according to the establishment media). And Spencer Ackerman’s story might have the perverse consequence of swinging some law’n order votes Rahm’s way.
Forth, the guard at the facility telling the Guardian reporter, “You shouldn’t be standing here.” was cute…real cute.
Fifth, the fact that detainees are not booked into databases and that lawyers are blocked from entering tells why it took the National Lawyers Guild lawyers 18 hours to find us and less than a hour to get us transferred first to a regular lockup and second release the next morning (except for the people they though they could turn as informants or the three they wanted to take to trial).
Nice to see some sunlight shed on this operation that by its processes is open to all sorts of Constitutional violations and legal abuses.
Open to it? It’s existence is a constitutional violation and legal abuse. And people wonder why I hate cops.
If there’s one, there’s more.
Our police love to share their success stories with one another.
You’re right. And if this doesn’t wake us up to the hole we’ve fallen into, I’m not sure what will.
No evidence that anything is going to wake up a solid majority in this country anytime soon. A $4 trillion war based on lies. “Mistakes happen.” Trillion dollar financial meltdown. Blame a few poor people. Katrina and Sandy. Not new; Hurricanes blow. NSA “collecting it all.” Ho-hum.
Hey all do not worry I am sure Homeland Security will check into this! Opps sorry looks like the TP/GOP will not fund then guess the people are on their own.
The regional DHS Fusion Center was the command center for actions taken during the NATO protests. And DOJ funds the collaboration of units of government in dealing with gangs. I’m sure they’ll get on it as soon as they indict George W. Bush for violating the US War Crimes statute.
and despite all this, there remain people who will assert that there is such a thing as a good cop. No there isn’t.
You prefer vigilantism?
At this point how much of a difference is there?
Not a binary situation.
Accountabiity and an end to impunity of cop misbehavior. That includes corruption and carrying out of political agendas for the boss.
Given the crime rates, there also could be a reduction in the force.
But that requires public pressure, which requires public attention over sustained periods of time. Which btw is why vigilantism always turns out to be temporary and ends after a few individuals have settled private arguments by using the system corruptly. Even neighborhood watches walk the line between apathy and vigilantism.
Was not defending police torture. was responding to all cops are bad. 99% 99.9% maybe, but not 100% Conceded that the good cops probably leave early.
The good cops either get called rats and ostracized by their fellow officers and they quickly become bad cops themselves, turn a blind eye for fear of being ostracized though they don’t participate in the abuse themselves (making them defacto bad cops and part of the problem), or they quit the force before too long.
In other news, I believe Jon Burge has been released.
Ah, if only they had put him in general population with the nieblanc prisoners.
Jesus freaking Christ- I’m freaked out just from reading the excerpts; looking forward to having more time to dig into all the reporting. What the hell is going on in this country? This is even worse than the very, very bad things we already know about.
If this horror show is happening, I share fladem’s stunned disbelief that the abused and their attorneys are not making enough successful lawsuits happen to stop this shit. I hope the Guardian’s reporting holds up here; otherwise, our common desire to roll back the unconstitutional security state is damaged, even if unfairly so.
By the way, in another journalistic era the Chicago newspapers would not have been scooped on this story. What’s going on with them?? Any Frog Ponders living in Chicago who can give us their perspectives?
It’s been going on ever since the “gang unit” was established at Homan Square. It’s just that arresting a dozen white people ripped the secrecy off of what has been happening to minority communities for a decade or two.
And that ignores the issues of false positives and false negatives when policing operates without evidence.
Also, I wish Spencer and the Guardian could have run this piece before Election Day in Chicago. This is too late to affect the Mayor’s race. If true, Rahm should get run out on a rail. Instead, his consolidation of power may be increased by today’s result.
Accountability and individual responsibility is all the rage for normal people. The megarich and their servants- not at all.
My sense is that those who would be motivated to vote Rahm out already knew about it and would not be motivated, but those who would love Rahm’s toughness would be motivated to get out based on a CPD Union voter turn-out campaign.
As it is, it motivates who it motivates without an organized campaign behind it unless Chuy’s workers find that it gets out more last minute deciders.
Persisting over too many news cycles has been the death of many exposes to have effect.
The problem isn’t just Rahm. This unit predated him. And any likely successor would most likely have supported it, too, at least until it (now hopefully) became a public scandal.
For the record, I can’t speak to items 4 and 5. But items 1, 2, and 3 are certainly true.
But I can report these additionally.
Duh.
The other two are still serving their time. Not sure that “willing” quite gets at the situation.
Ah, I missed that. No wonder they fear retaliation.
Chris Hayes interviews Spencer Ackerman tonight about it.
This reminds me of some of the exhibits I saw when touring the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile.
And no, that’s not a good thing.
The assassination of Fred Hampton should have been a wake-up call. No accountability. No change.
Jon Birge.
Ever heard of him?
He and his squad TORTURED
HUNDREDS OF BLACK MEN
put them in jail through confessions obtained by TORTURE.
His release from jail is what started Ackerman on his journalist journey to this article today.
And the City of Chicago has not indicated that it will compensate the victims. And likely it will be difficult to get those still in prison released for crimes they didn’t do.