The American Gulag

So according to the UK Guardian, the City of Chicago runs its own private Lyubyanka:

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.

If it’s confirmed that the Chicago Police have been pelting the Fourth Amendment with rocks and offal – then :

  • It’s time to send US troops to liberate Chicago, and
  • it makes perfect sense that it’s in a Democrat-controlled city.

Much as I love Chicago, I won’t spend another tourist dollar there until those responsible for Homan Square are frog-walked out of their offices and put into Federal custody.

And it’ll be interesting to see what other such places pop up around the country.

TANGENT:  I’m gonna start the countdown clock for someone comparing Homan Square with the “black sites” run by the CIA and foreign countries. It’s a lousy comparison (notwithstanding the fact I didn’t support them, either), but let’s burn that bridge when we come to it, shall we?

8 thoughts on “The American Gulag

  1. I wrote about this, too. It’s not surprising. If you frog-walked out everyone responsible, there’d be no one left in Daley Plaza and the City-County Building.

  2. “I’m gonna start the countdown clock for someone comparing Homan Square with the “black sites” run by the CIA and foreign countries…”
    “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”
    You’re like what the NYT’s Gail Collins thinks of Gov. Scott Walker and teacher layoffs that occurred before he took office, MBerg; you can shape events and bend time to your evil bidding.
    Sweet Barry will probably announce his determinination to ‘close Homan Square down’, right after he ‘closes Gitmo’. Personally, I’m shocked no said “I blame George W. Bush” since it is an article in The Guardian. Rahm is too busy running for Mayor to give a sh**. And the protesters are white – they likely had it coming – so it’s all good.

  3. It strikes me that a community organizer from the area didn’t clue into the fact that people from his neighborhood were being sent there. Dang, what an advocate for human rights the South Side had for 20 years.

    Send them all to Club Gitmo!

  4. The only thing new here is that the coppers got the city to pay for their interrogation and attitude adjustment center. If I was a owner of shuttered commercial property in Cicero, I’d be asking for back rent.

  5. A typical message to hizzoner’s office from a Chicago community organizer would go something like “You’re gonna see feet on the street on the evening news unless you put 500 low cost housing units in my community! And these units must — MUST — be built by my buddy Tony Rezko. And Valerie Jarret MUST manage the project”

  6. The Guardian? As in, the newspaper published in London, England? Where they don’t have a First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of the press? That’s where Americans have to go to learn what’s happening in our own country?

    Plainly, the American Experiment hasn’t worked out so well for us. To Hell with succession – how do we go about joining back up as a colony?

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