By Matt Agorist
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the Guardian revealed a mind-blowingly high number of people who were effectively ‘disappeared’ at the secret warehouse prison used by Chicago cops.
As Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, blames the “YouTube Effect” for the animosity towards police, more than 7,000 people were secretly detained and held without due process in his town. Apparently, none of the victims, their friends, or their family members should resent police for holding their loved ones without due process.
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. That percentage aligns with Chicago police’s broader practice of providing minimal access to attorneys during the crucial early interrogation stage, when an arrestee’s constitutional rights against self-incrimination are most vulnerable.
But Homan Square is unlike Chicago police precinct houses, according to lawyers who described a “find-your-client game” and experts who reviewed data from the latest tranche of arrestee records obtained by the Guardian.
“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.”
Internal police records obtained by the Guardian show that from August 2004 to June 2015, nearly 6,000 of those held in Homan Square were black. This number represents more the two times the proportion of the city’s population.
Of those 6,000 held, only 68 people were allowed access to attorneys or had their whereabouts released publicly.
The vast majority of those held in Homan Square were done so under entirely illegal circumstances — and no one is being held accountable for it.
The damning information released by the Guardian on Monday paints an ominous picture of the lengths cops will go to enforce the war on drugs. Most of those illegally held in this paramilitary prison were done so under the guise of the drug war. According to their report:
The narcotics, vice and anti-gang units operating out of Homan Square, on Chicago’s west side, take arrestees to the nondescript warehouse from all over the city: police data obtained by the Guardian and mapped against the city grid show that 53% of disclosed arrestees come from more than 2.5 miles away from the warehouse. No contemporaneous public record of someone’s presence at Homan Square is known to exist.
Nor are any booking records generated at Homan Square, as confirmed by a sworn deposition of a police researcher in late September, further preventing relatives or attorneys from finding someone taken there.
“The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square,” said Craig Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who studies policing. “They’re disappeared at that point.”
After being held against their will, without due process, and not knowing if they were going to make it out alive, more the 5,000 of those held at Homan Square were charged with drug possession only; heroin accounted for 35.4% of those, with marijuana next at 22.3%.
The Free Thought Project has interviewed some of those held in this frightening place. Their experiences are shocking.
The fact that police can operate a secret prison, which has now admitted that it detains people without due process and is known for torturing many of its victims, should be a wake-up call to those unaware of the nightmarish police state being constructed around them.
How many other Homan Squares currently exist in America? If one can exist, it is certainly feasible to suspect more than one. Please share this article with your friends and family to expose these rights violating tyrants.
Matt Agorist writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com
No surprise there. “Nothing to see here…move along and stay off of Youtube! That’s the real culprit for the people becoming more distrusting of Nazis”
I know what Homan Square is from a retired CPO friend. It is not what it’s portrayed to be here.
Could you elaborate ?
It is a police station, I have never hear the CPD deny that. It is where other law enforcement agent work with the CPD. There are reasons it is not broadcast and they make sense to me.
Secret “police stations” make sense to you? Why?
Police are supposed to protect and serve, not be the government’s secret servants.
Who said it was a secret? The police admit it’s there and being used.
Makes sense in North Korea ,liberal fascist are getting what they wanted,but as the song goes it ain’t me babe.Thanks
I’m sure this story is exaggerated in one direction and your retired CPO friend’s story is exaggerated in the other direction, But is it really right or OK that a citizen is denied his or her rights of due process? Is it OK because they may very well be breaking the law? Is it OK because they may be a scumbag even?
To even violate the worse criminal’s rights as a human being allows a “precedent” (a legal term – look it up anyone that dos not understand it) to be set to allow it for the innocent. According to the article many innocent people were abused there along with the guilty.
As for the guilty, the “War on Drugs” should have come to a halt long ago as it is no better or different that Prohibition was. You can’t protect people from themselves and government has no right to say what we do or don’t do to our bodies so long as it does NOT infringe upon another’s rights.
There in lies the problem. For the most part, pot users don’t infringe upon others’ rights, but that is where it ends. All these other ‘junkies’, especially meth users, do infringe on others rights; even alcohol users when they climb behind the wheel. But just sticking with ‘drugs’, when these users run out of money and need a fix, what do they do? There has been more than enough reports, in all forms, published to prove that the users abuse others’ rights to get their fix. I’ve seen it first hand. So please don’t say that it doesn’t infringe on others’ rights, because it always will; in one way or another.
The problem is government (and naive people) blame the drug and not the abuser. They immediately want to punish the tool (drug) instead of the person with the bad behavior.
By the logic used in the drug war, we should then ban everything people commit crimes with and for, which would include everything in every store everywhere.
FYI, I am no stranger to drugs or drug abuse. Been there, done that, know plenty that still struggle, counseled some with positive results. (Hard to respond in this forum on a cell phone. 🙂 )
You are correct for the most part. The government ALWAYS blames the TOOL, no matter what the situation. The problem with the drugs is that some of them can be addictive from just using them once. It does take a strong willed person to beat that addiction. And the pushers should be punished the worst, while the users need true rehab with strong consequences to deter repeat offenses. Got to stop the demand to kill the supply. Congrats on your beating it and trying to help others. Keep up the good work!
And yes, the stupid government is trying to ban ALL the TOOLS thinking that will stop the crimes when we of common sense know better. I don’t think they will ever learn. It wouldn’t fit their agenda.
Best to you and your future.
Alcohol isn’t addictive? It’s legal and buying it is only illegal for minors.
How about all the Big Pharma synthetic drugs? They are legal with a prescription.
In fact, the opiates are more damaging than natural drugs (I know because I have family that struggles with them and it will be a lifelong struggle and such an addiction, if stopped “cold turkey” will kill a person if their addiction is strong enough) and they are routinely prescribed, used, and abused, but they are not made illegal.
The drug war is a failure, a waste of money and time, has put MANY behind bars that should not be, has caused the rise of the drug cartels, and has cost countless lives.
Prove it. At least this article has references.
Pretty simple really – – don’t do drugs, don’t get arrested.
I agree with you on that point, however, how long before they start arresting people for other charges, without due process? Look at Irwin Schiff. 87 year old man died chained to his bed for protesting taxes and proving that Fed income tax is illegal. If you are out of step with the government, you can end up in a place like this.
Pretty simple really, get a clue.
How did Prohibition work out?
How is the War on Drugs working out?
How do you feel about YOUR rights? I assume, by your statement, that you really don’t care about them.
Good rules to live by, but lots of innocent people are arrested, jailed, and die in jails like this. There’s no excuse for this kind of facility. What is true is the US Justice Dept will not do a damned thing about it.
How many would be in there if we the people did not have weapons with this Currupt Administration
Exactly why they want our guns.
All administrations are corrupt to a point, one is no worse than the other. We the people have to keep up with what they are doing & vote them out if they are not working on making America better for all its people.
how could this go on for 11 years and no one reports it until now??? where were the whistle blowers??
In jail.
In Homan Square. Or worse.
Yep.
where were the big mouth lawyers and the ACLU????
Good question.
Or dead.
Well surprise, surprise, we have fraud president committing treason and other high crimes and NO ONE is doing anything about that either. So, why is it so shocking that no one is doing anything about this either?
Just my 2 cents worth.
If it’s for illegal drug or drug dealers, I say fine. Put the drug dealers in there and throw away the key. If it is a nightmare of a place, maybe it will have a good effect on the younger druggies, old dealers well shove the bodies into dumpsters and take them out the back.
Now we know why Obama would not or does not do any thing Chicago crime. This would have come our years ago if Obama would have someone investigate crime in the city, shame that is his home town. He is as lawless as they are so as Hillary says WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE.