UK GUARDIAN: Exclusive: Secret interrogation facility reveals creeping aspects of war on terror in US city as accounts describe shackling and brutality without basic rights
British press dropped a bombshell on the world.. Reporting by Spencer Ackerman of the UK GUARDIAN has created a firestorm of controversy around the globe, even though American news seemingly is ignoring the revelations printed in latest runs of the British paper..
Ackerman writes,
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.
Among the many points blasted in the story from the GUARDIAN, police do some interesting things.. these salient points are presented:
- 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.
One quote from the article was a bit chilling, with one protester telling the reporter, “It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you”
The Chicago police department was forced into an awkward position on this matter.. they issued their defense in a statement to the GUARDIAN.. They said, in part:
“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.”
Is this the night Chicago died? Or the night that constitutional did?
The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’
