Homan Square in Chicago: a black site where domestic American prisoners are disappeared and tortured

Northside Storm · Feb 27, 2015

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of this. To me, it's the American civil rights story of the year.

It shows another layer of the damage the War on Terror has wrought on America itself, a much darker layer than previously discussed: the transfer of abusive polices reserved for those abroad to prisoners right here, many of them overwhelmingly racial minorities. The irony is that some of the most torturous policies on foreign prisoners have been sourced from domestic abuses and now the flow is going both ways. It is a compounding of errors that seems to have denied many their basic constitutional rights.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e-chicago-washington-politicians-human-rights

'Gestapo' tactics at US police 'black site' ring alarm from Chicago to Washington

The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian.

As three more people came forward detailing their stories of being “held hostage” and “strapped” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney or an official public record of their detention by Chicago police, officials and activists said the allegations merited further inquiry and risked aggravating wounds over community policing and race that have reached as high as the White House.
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden '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.
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A former Chicago detective and current private investigator, Bill Dorsch, said he had not heard of the police abuses described by Church and lawyers for other suspects who had been taken to Homan Square. He has been permitted access to the facility to visit one of its main features, an evidence locker for the police department. (“I just showed my retirement star and passed through,” Dorsch said.)

Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to legal counsel, would be “a career-ender,” Dorsch said. “To move just for the purpose of hiding them, I can’t see that happening,” he told the Guardian.

Richard Brzeczek, Chicago’s police superintendent from 1980 to 1983, who also said he had no first-hand knowledge of abuses at Homan Square, said it was “never justified” to deny access to attorneys.

“Homan Square should be on the same list as every other facility where you can call central booking and say: ‘Can you tell me if this person is in custody and where,’” Brzeczek said.

“If you’re going to be doing this, then you have to include Homan Square on the list of facilities that prisoners are taken into and a record made. It can’t be an exempt facility.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/guantanamo-torture-chicago-police-brutality

Guantánamo torturer led brutal Chicago regime of shackling and confession

A Chicago detective who led one of the most shocking acts of torture ever conducted at Guantánamo Bay was responsible for implementing a disturbingly similar, years-long regime of brutality to elicit murder confessions from minority Americans.

In a dark foreshadowing of the United States’ post-9/11 descent into torture, a Guardian investigation can reveal that Richard Zuley, a detective on Chicago’s north side from 1977 to 2007, repeatedly engaged in methods of interrogation resulting in at least one wrongful conviction and subsequent cases more recently thrown into doubt following allegations of abuse.

Zuley’s record suggests a continuum between police abuses in urban America and the wartime detention scandals that continue to do persistent damage to the reputation of the United States. Zuley’s tactics, which would be supercharged at Guantánamo when he took over the interrogation of a high-profile detainee as a US Navy reserve lieutenant, included:

• Shackling suspects to police-precinct walls through eyebolts for hours on end.

• Accusations of planting evidence when there was pressure for a high-profile murder conviction.

• Threats of harm to family members of those under interrogation used as leverage.

• Pressure on suspects to implicate themselves and others.

• Threats of being subject to the death penalty if suspects did not confess.
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As Slahi did, inmates said they confessed untruthfully to try and stop the treatment by Zuley.

“Basically, they just tortured me, mentally, and somewhat physically, with the cuffs,” Benita Johnson, an inmate serving a 60-year murder sentence, told the Guardian from prison of the interrogation that led to her conviction.
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The abuses of the post-9/11 surveillance state have truly started leaking out, bit by bit. Some of the origins stem from domestic policies that had always gone wrong and now that moral debt is being compounded into policies that are barbaric in America and outside of it.

Remii · Feb 27, 2015

Northside Storm said: ↑

The abuses of the post-9/11 surveillance state have truly started leaking out, bit by bit. Some of the origins stem some from domestic policies that had always gone wrong and now that moral debt is being compounded into policies that are barbaric in America and outside of it.
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This type of stuff has been going on and has been leaked out before 9/11...

Invisible Fan · Feb 27, 2015

The tortured baddies confessed. We found the nukes in the nick of time.

So what's the problem?

P.S. Thanks but no thanks, Guardian. You're not even American.

rocketsjudoka · Mar 2, 2015

I've read some of this story and I agree it is sad how little attention this is getting. I fully understand why police shootings are getting a lot of attention but there are many things like this where police are systematically violating people's rights that are not being looked at.

Invisible Fan · Mar 4, 2015

Invisible Fan said: ↑

The tortured baddies confessed. We found the nukes in the nick of time.

So what's the problem?

P.S. Thanks but no thanks, Guardian. You're not even American.
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I gotta retract the glib sarcasm because the lack of attention to this story in the media is beyond pathetic.

Northside Storm · Mar 4, 2015

Invisible Fan said: ↑

I gotta retract the glib sarcasm because the lack of attention to this story in the media is beyond pathetic.
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it's all fun and games until the apathy sets in

HamJam · Mar 4, 2015

See, now, if a bunch of rioting and protests in the streets of Chicago was currently happening, then this would be getting the attention it deserves.

The only thing that pushes change is direct action.

Rocket River · Mar 4, 2015

This is insane

Rocket River

Invisible Fan · Mar 4, 2015

HamJam said: ↑

See, now, if a bunch of rioting and protests in the streets of Chicago was currently happening, then this would be getting the attention it deserves.

The only thing that pushes change is direct action.
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Oh noes, then they're a bunch of uncivilized unpatriotic thugs.

Something something Al Sharpton durka durka Jessie Jackson

Northside Storm · Mar 4, 2015

Invisible Fan said: ↑

Oh noes, then they're a bunch of uncivilized unpatriotic thugs.

Something something Al Sharpton durka durka Jessie Jackson
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to pull a classic D&D

"well, by golly, if you aren't in this thread condemning this RIGHT NOW then for sure you support torturing Americans you unpatriotic filth!"

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Homan Square in Chicago: a black site where domestic American prisoners are disappeared and tortured

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Homan Square in Chicago: a black site where domestic American prisoners are disappeared and tortured

Northside Storm Contributing Member

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