7 ms·

Homan Square, Chicago police's off-the-books interrogation warehouse

75 points by aroch 11y ago

hackuser 11y ago
It would be great if someone on HN is in law enforcment and could explain that perspective. I think it is hard for outsiders, seeing something like this, to understand how people in law enforcment view their relationship with the law. To be clear: Personally I'm not interested in speculation by people with no expertise; we have had more than enough of that.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
The use of the word "disappeared" is completely inappropriate. This is where people were held for a few hours, not shoved off to a Stalin-esque gulag or summarily executed. I also don't understand the race baiting conclusion at the end. What percentage of Chicagoans perform crime? Blacks are the poorest group by far and the largest ethnic group in the city, recently pushing out non-Latino whites from number one. If there's a conspiracy to let Whites perform crime without arrest, I'd like some proof other than "wink, wink, nod, nod" race baiting "stats." I pass as White and live in Chicago and the cops have never given me or my friends or family a free pass on anything. Also Homan Square isn't a "secret black site." The CPD openly acknowledges it. Hell, its where one of the evidence lockers are and they tell people to come on by and pick up their stuff when its no longer needed. What kind of black-site is listed on google maps? It also houses a SWAT group and a ballistics lab. You can pull up into the parking lot anytime you like and walk right in. The CPD just doesn't advertise it explicitly with signs: "the base of operations for officers working undercover assignments. These men and women dress in plain clothes and work to disrupt gang activity and clear drug markets out of neighborhoods. Advertising their base of operations could put their lives at risk, which is why Homan Square features little signage." http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-releases-fact-sheet-on-homan-square-facility/539346/ http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-releases-fact-sheet-on-homan... From what I can tell there's been one death there and the CPD claims it was from a heroin overdose. If the CPD was constantly "disappearing" people there would be a lot more evidence than one guy who died who was a known addict. What's the use of setting up a torture and murder center when after decades of use you just get one kill? Its pretty clear the tinfoil and anti-cop crowd control the narrative here. I'm sure its an unpleasant experience for arrested gang members, but any worse than being in another other facility or city seems questionable. In Illinois you can be held without charges for 48-72 hours, depending on what case law you're looking at. Nor do I see any law about notifying anyone during this period. The credible Homan stories fit this legal framework.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Slightly OT, but The Guardian moved quickly from a place of eminent respect for me (Snowden, etc) to join the majority of the media on the "do not trust" pile for things like you just mentioned. Race baiting, blatant moralizing and pontificating, weasel words and clickbait headlines (people being "disappeared?" get real) in hard news articles, etc. Fucking report the facts rather than feeding people a narrative. Apparently that's asking too much nowadays.
  - huac 11y ago
    Journalism is about more than merely reporting facts in bullet point format. Save that for PowerPoint - journalism is about connecting those dots into what the reporter believes is the story.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      And that ought to be done as neutrally and factually as possible. If I can see what the journalist's opinion on the matter is by reading their article, they did it wrong. Their job is to tell me what happened and why, not what I should think about it. Saying that people were "disappeared" as this article does is not journalism, it is demagoguery.
      - wfo 11y ago
        If their facts are correct (and I think we would be remiss in our duty as citizens if we do not give serious attention to every negative thing said about the police at this point until proven otherwise), stating they were "disappeared" is neither journalism or demagoguery, it is fact. Journalism is the article that wraps itself around the word.
        Karunamon 11y ago
        But that's nothing more than a half-truth at that point - a lie by omission, since when most people think of the verb "disappeared", they tend to think gulags, people vanishing permanently, etc, like what happened under Stalin. I know it, you know it, and the writers of a paper like The Guardian certainly know it. Off the books interrogations happening is nothing short of evil on its own - why stretch the truth to imply something else that wasn't happening?
malcolmgreaves 11y ago
This says it all: “Not much shakes me in this business – baby murder, sex assault, I’ve done it all,” said David Gaeger, an attorney whose client was taken to Homan Square in 2011 after being arrested for marijuana. “That place was and is scary. It’s a scary place. There’s nothing about it that resembles a police station. It comes from a Bond movie or something.” Chicago PD: Constitution? What constitution? According to an analysis of data disclosed to the Guardian in late September, police allowed lawyers access to Homan Square for only 0.94% of the 7,185 arrests logged over nearly 11 years.
- huac 11y ago
  Shockingly, the lawyer visit rate at Homan is still 3 times the 'average' rate: "The 2014 citywide total at declared police stations...was 0.3%."
minimax 11y ago
Here are some articles from the local Chicago press from the last time this came up: http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-site-mischaracterized-111629 http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-sit... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-homan-square-chicago-police-met-20150227-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-homan-s... Not trying to defend CPD here, but the guardian seems to be alone in trying to dramatize this into a story about the Homan Square facility being sort of black ops detention facility.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  It was also the subject of The Good Wife season 6 finale, if you like your current events with a side of fiction.
- ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
  Perhaps, the others don't want to cover it for ulterior motives, such as how could this be going down in your backyard and you know nothing about it?
- Zigurd 11y ago
  Big city newspapers are highly dependent on access to police department official information.
dullcrisp 11y ago
> He is among 19 people identified among the 7,185 arrests who turned themselves into police at the warehouse Who do you contact if you find a typo?

75 points by aroch 11y ago

It would be great if someone on HN is in law enforcment and could explain that perspective. I think it is hard for outsiders, seeing something like this, to understand how people in law enforcment view their relationship with the law. To be clear: Personally I'm not interested in speculation by people with no expertise; we have had more than enough of that.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

The use of the word "disappeared" is completely inappropriate. This is where people were held for a few hours, not shoved off to a Stalin-esque gulag or summarily executed. I also don't understand the race baiting conclusion at the end. What percentage of Chicagoans perform crime? Blacks are the poorest group by far and the largest ethnic group in the city, recently pushing out non-Latino whites from number one. If there's a conspiracy to let Whites perform crime without arrest, I'd like some proof other than "wink, wink, nod, nod" race baiting "stats." I pass as White and live in Chicago and the cops have never given me or my friends or family a free pass on anything. Also Homan Square isn't a "secret black site." The CPD openly acknowledges it. Hell, its where one of the evidence lockers are and they tell people to come on by and pick up their stuff when its no longer needed. What kind of black-site is listed on google maps? It also houses a SWAT group and a ballistics lab. You can pull up into the parking lot anytime you like and walk right in. The CPD just doesn't advertise it explicitly with signs: "the base of operations for officers working undercover assignments. These men and women dress in plain clothes and work to disrupt gang activity and clear drug markets out of neighborhoods. Advertising their base of operations could put their lives at risk, which is why Homan Square features little signage." http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-releases-fact-sheet-on-homan-square-facility/539346/ http://abc7chicago.com/news/cpd-releases-fact-sheet-on-homan... From what I can tell there's been one death there and the CPD claims it was from a heroin overdose. If the CPD was constantly "disappearing" people there would be a lot more evidence than one guy who died who was a known addict. What's the use of setting up a torture and murder center when after decades of use you just get one kill? Its pretty clear the tinfoil and anti-cop crowd control the narrative here. I'm sure its an unpleasant experience for arrested gang members, but any worse than being in another other facility or city seems questionable. In Illinois you can be held without charges for 48-72 hours, depending on what case law you're looking at. Nor do I see any law about notifying anyone during this period. The credible Homan stories fit this legal framework.

Karunamon 11y ago
Slightly OT, but The Guardian moved quickly from a place of eminent respect for me (Snowden, etc) to join the majority of the media on the "do not trust" pile for things like you just mentioned. Race baiting, blatant moralizing and pontificating, weasel words and clickbait headlines (people being "disappeared?" get real) in hard news articles, etc. Fucking report the facts rather than feeding people a narrative. Apparently that's asking too much nowadays.
- huac 11y ago
  Journalism is about more than merely reporting facts in bullet point format. Save that for PowerPoint - journalism is about connecting those dots into what the reporter believes is the story.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    And that ought to be done as neutrally and factually as possible. If I can see what the journalist's opinion on the matter is by reading their article, they did it wrong. Their job is to tell me what happened and why, not what I should think about it. Saying that people were "disappeared" as this article does is not journalism, it is demagoguery.
    - wfo 11y ago
      If their facts are correct (and I think we would be remiss in our duty as citizens if we do not give serious attention to every negative thing said about the police at this point until proven otherwise), stating they were "disappeared" is neither journalism or demagoguery, it is fact. Journalism is the article that wraps itself around the word.
      - Karunamon 11y ago
        But that's nothing more than a half-truth at that point - a lie by omission, since when most people think of the verb "disappeared", they tend to think gulags, people vanishing permanently, etc, like what happened under Stalin. I know it, you know it, and the writers of a paper like The Guardian certainly know it. Off the books interrogations happening is nothing short of evil on its own - why stretch the truth to imply something else that wasn't happening?

malcolmgreaves 11y ago

This says it all: “Not much shakes me in this business – baby murder, sex assault, I’ve done it all,” said David Gaeger, an attorney whose client was taken to Homan Square in 2011 after being arrested for marijuana. “That place was and is scary. It’s a scary place. There’s nothing about it that resembles a police station. It comes from a Bond movie or something.” Chicago PD: Constitution? What constitution? According to an analysis of data disclosed to the Guardian in late September, police allowed lawyers access to Homan Square for only 0.94% of the 7,185 arrests logged over nearly 11 years.

huac 11y ago
Shockingly, the lawyer visit rate at Homan is still 3 times the 'average' rate: "The 2014 citywide total at declared police stations...was 0.3%."

minimax 11y ago

Here are some articles from the local Chicago press from the last time this came up: http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-site-mischaracterized-111629 http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-sit... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-homan-square-chicago-police-met-20150227-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-homan-s... Not trying to defend CPD here, but the guardian seems to be alone in trying to dramatize this into a story about the Homan Square facility being sort of black ops detention facility.

tedunangst 11y ago
It was also the subject of The Good Wife season 6 finale, if you like your current events with a side of fiction.
ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
Perhaps, the others don't want to cover it for ulterior motives, such as how could this be going down in your backyard and you know nothing about it?
Zigurd 11y ago
Big city newspapers are highly dependent on access to police department official information.

dullcrisp 11y ago

> He is among 19 people identified among the 7,185 arrests who turned themselves into police at the warehouse Who do you contact if you find a typo?