Is it okay to call America a police state yet? Stuff like this isn’t even something you ‘compare’ to police state activities, it’s something you point out as an example of what not to do.
The paramilitary gear, the shift in culture, the ‘protect at all cost’ attitude of internal investigations that rarely seem to lead to anything…
Yeah, things could be better, at least from an external perspective.
so I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life, except for 7.5 years in China and about 6 months in Europe. I’ve never been in trouble with the law, and I am white and male, so take that for what it’s worth. As many of you know, I’ve got a pretty strong libertarian streak, I despise the overall police state, prison system, and all that kind of stuff. On the whole, I think Chicago is probably worse than your average American city when it comes to this kind of stuff, but also probably not anywhere near the worst to be honest.
All that being said, this article is mostly sensationalist nonsense. The Homan facility is not some secret black site where people are “disappeared” never to be seen from again. In fact, if you look at this building on google maps, you’ll see it’s very clearly a CPD building. In fact, CPD often hosts press conferences here, and journalists and lawyers are constantly coming in and out of this building.
What IS happening at the Homan facility: arrested suspects are being brought here for a certain amount of time before actually being “booked” officially. The_984 can probably comment better on exactly what the legality of this kind of tactic is, but essentially it’s somewhere they bring you to try and shake you down and get you to talk before being booked and seeing your lawyer. My understanding is that they aren’t exactly denying you the right to see your lawyer…but they’re not required to immediately allow you to see your lawyer. anyway, once you’ve asked for a lawyer, anything they ask you is no longer admissible in court anyway. But that’s not what’s going on here. They’re trying to get you to cop or plea out to something before that ever becomes an issue. Is torture being used in some cases? Probably, I wouldn’t doubt it…just google Jon Burge and prepare to hurl your lunch at how disgusting it is. Is police abuse unique to this Homan facility? I highly doubt it…which in some ways is probably even worse than if this were just CPD’s exclusive “torture site”. The militarization of police is a problem all over the U.S.
WBEZ is about the most respectable news source you can get for Chicago, here is their take, which isn’t all that different from mine I don’t think: http://www.wbez.org/news/chicago-polices-so-called-black-site-mischaracterized-111629
And also, here is an interesting thread on reddit chicago from someone who claims to have been taken to this facility. My reading of his case hardly made me think this facility was some secret hidden torture site, but is kind of concerning how long you can spend there without being properly booked. Again, 984 can probably comment better on whether this is actually going against due process, or whether it’s technically legal but morally abhorrent.
This is what happens when you allow the dead to elect politicians.
That was actually a really good article. It’s not exactly reassuring that the practices aren’t limited to just one place, but I guess dem’s de breaks. Is this the current mayor of Chicago, 984?
I assume this is a baby boomers jab?
Either that or he’s dead inside.
LOL…I just realized one of the Guardian’s main sources for its article was Brian Jacob Church. That guy is quite a character…here’s a story on him: http://rt.com/usa/nato-3-verdict-125/
Now…I’m not saying that Mr. Church is outright lying about what happened to him. He probably was detained there for a certain amount of time before being booked, I don’t doubt that. But the guy has a serious history of anti-police activism, so he’s hardly an unbiased source when talking about a matter like this. From the article:
"Prosecutors highlighted certain statements picked up in recordings, including Church’s question to one of the undercover officers during the creation of the Molotovs, “ready to see a police officer on fire?” Church also said at one point that “the city doesn’t know what it’s in for and after NATO it will never be the same.”
Yeah…I’m sure a guy who says “ready to see a police officer on fire?” is a reliable witness for a story about police brutality. The Guardian is great sometimes…but seriously the reason this article hasn’t caught wind in other papers is because no respectable journalist would speak with this guy and even think about writing up a story based on anything he says.
Again…that doesn’t mean any of the awful things mentioned in that article aren’t happening. Like I said, just google Jon Burge and you’ll get all of the horrific Chicago police stories you could ever want there. It just seriously strains your credibility to write an article based off anythign a lunatic like Brian Church says.
Not if you’re a true patriotic, God-fearing 'murcan citizen! :D
That or they have Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star fame standing by the voting booths.
Nope. Members of the Chicago Democratic machine famously rigged the Presidential election in 1960 by having the dead voted. The dead voting in Chicago is a pretty famous joke.
Not where I’m from it’s not.
I’m from where you’re from and it was a pretty common joke that the dead vote in Chicago. That’s what the whole Simpsons Sideshow Bob Roberts episode was lampooning.
Additionally, the reason why Chicago is called the Windy City in the first place isn’t because its near the plains or the Great Lakes, its because of all the windbag politicians working there at the time when they coined the phrase.
That’s actually amazing. All of those things.
The corruption here is pretty insane for america…maybe it’s part of the reason it was so easy for me to assimilate into life in China. My friends from places like Minneapolis couldn’t believe you’d have to do things like give red envelopes full of cash to get paperwork done…I was just like yep, just like home. That being said, it was actually windy as shit here too…so I think the term Windy City really fits both ways.
I thought it was common knowledge dead people would routinely show up on voter rolls here in Chicago (not recently obviously)…but that was hardly the extent of it. People would vote multiple times, votes thrown in certain boxes would just be thrown away. All kinds of egregious shit.
Here’s something about a fun winter Chicago tradition called dibs: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/chicago-dibs-parking-photos_n_6471978.html
I clicked this expecting it to be about Carnahan…but it wasn’t. You guys really do have a tradition of voting for the dead.
I don’t watch the Simpsons :\