Report Accuses Chicago Police Of Operating Domestic Equivalent Of A CIA Black Site

Spencer Ackerman of The Guardian has a report accusing the Chicago police of violating civil liberties, using a site comparable to CIA black sites used for terrorism suspects:

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.

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…

The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.

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.”

Much remains hidden about Homan Square. The Chicago police department did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about the facility. But after the Guardian published this story, the department provided a statement insisting, without specifics, that there is nothing untoward taking place at what it called the “sensitive” location, home to undercover units.

“CPD [Chicago police department] abides by all laws, rules and guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at Homan Square or any other CPD facility. If lawyers have a client detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed to speak to and visit them. It also houses CPD’s Evidence Recovered Property Section, where the public is able to claim inventoried property,” the statement said, something numerous attorneys and one Homan Square arrestee have denied.

“There are always records of anyone who is arrested by CPD, and this is not any different at Homan Square,” it continued.

The Chicago police statement did not address how long into an arrest or detention those records are generated or their availability to the public. A department spokesperson did not respond to a detailed request for clarification.

Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice Project and a criminologist was interviewed by Tanya Basu of The Atlantic

Basu: Why wasn’t the press covering it?

Siska: I think that many crime reporters in Chicago have political views that are right in line with the police. They tend to agree about the tactics needed by the police. They tend to have by one extent or the other the same racist views of the police—a lot of urban police (not all of them by any stretch, but a lot of them) embody racism.

Later in the interview:

Basu: Going back to the Guantanamo interrogation techniques associated with Homan Square, and just to be clear: These warehouses aren’t interrogating suspected terrorists, correct?

Siska: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 99 percent of the people from this site are involved in some form of street crime: gang activities, drugs—urban violent crime. That’s what makes the site even worse. It takes Guantanamo-style tactics on urban street criminals and shreds the Bill of Rights.

Basu: To clarify: What do “Guantanamo-style” tactics entail?

Siska: Isolation, deprivation of food, other outside contact. It’s meant to be a lot of touchless torture. So they’re not touching you, which in the human-rights field is more powerful and scary because it doesn’t leave marks but leaves huge internal wounds. Most of the time, people aren’t physically abused. They’re cut off from society, not allowed phone calls, not fed as much. These are just tactics that are more sophisticated in urban-policing tactics.

Basu: What does it mean when Ackerman says records would disappear?

Siska: We changed that rule. What used to happen at Homan Square is that prior to a year ago, if you get arrested and you get brought down anywhere in any district, you would not pop up in the city computer as being arrested until they processed the police report, which could take anywhere from an hour to 15 hours. If they “arrested” you, then they have to report it. But if they don’t “arrest you,” nefarious things could happen and they could interrogate you without a lawyer. And they would move you around from district to district. So [for example] if the family shows up or the lawyer shows up and they say you aren’t here but you are, they’ve denied you access. But if they say you’re at [district] 17, then move you to 15, and then 12, they can question you without counsel. At Homan Square they don’t process paperwork about your arrest. You’re just gone. No one knows.

At some point they have to do the paperwork and prosecute you. After they get your confession, you wind up back in the paperwork.

MSNBC has posted a statement from the Chicago police denying the accusations, however most of the issues are not specifically addressed in the statement:

The allegations in this instance are not supported by facts. The vast majority of our officers serve the public with honor and integrity, and alleged actions of one individual decades ago are in no way indicative of the hard working men and women who put their lives on the line each day to protect residents.

The Chicago Police Department has zero tolerance for misconduct, and has instituted a series of internal initiatives and reforms, to ensure past incidents of police misconduct are not repeated.

Over the past three years, CPD created and implemented procedural justice training, which is mandatory for all police officers, built around understanding, fairness and respect.  CPD strengthened Internal Affairs, adding accountability measures to their work, adding more investigators, bringing Sergeants into investigations and giving the Bureau of Internal Affairs priority in selecting staff. Additionally, CPD has worked to ensure we have the right supervisors in place, and provided new training that reflects the values we hold, not just as a department but as a community. At the same time, we have made community policing the foundation of our policing philosophy and we have fostered stronger partnership with community leaders, faith leaders and residents.

2 Comments

  1. 1
    David Duff says:

    Who gives a toss?  It’s Chicago, for God’s sake, waddya expect?

    Of more pressing urgency (I would have thought) to a man whose blog is entitled “Liberal Values” is some alarum at Obama’s move to grip and control the internet. If Bush had tried that you would have been screaming and throwing your toys out of the pram but because it’s Obama,who can do no wrong, “the rest is silence”.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    It is no surprise that you have no problems with abuses of civil liberties and mistreatment of blacks.

    Obama can do no wrong? There are plenty of things which I have disagreed with him on, however in every case the Republicans have proposed worse. A rational centrist is far better than right wing extremists.

    Obama is certainly not moving to grip control of the Internet. It is the opposite. Obama has promoted a free and open Internet. With so much of the economy now dependent on the Internet, Obama has helped preserve the free market here, fighting the usual Republican agenda to destroy capitalism in the United States and form a plutocracy.

    Now that we are seeing success in preserving net freedom, I hope Obama can go further. We need to change the situation that leaves people in the United States with slower Internet speeds and higher costs than in much of the rest of the world.

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