Little
wonder “Crime” is down to near zero in America’s major cities. It is off the
books like reporting on Police shooting civilians as in Ferguson and Abu Ghraib.
Welcome to
the post 911 Bush/Cheney Dynasty world. Prison Paradise (on the taxpayer's dime - the 99% that is).
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.
Brian Jacob
Church was taken to Homan Square after police picked him up in 2012 on
terrorism charges he beat at trial. He said police first photographed him for a
biometrics database, took him down a long cinderblock hallway on a second
floor, and handcuffed him to a bench bolted to the floor. He spent the next 17
hours there – approximately, as it was a windowless room and the lights were
kept on overhead – while police attempted an interrogation he described as a
fishing expedition.
Homan Square
struck Church as the police equivalent of a CIA black site. Inside, he saw
“big, big vehicles” that looked to him like the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
used by US soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. When his lawyers were
finally permitted access, Church spoke with them through a 12ft x 12ft metal
cage.
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