The loop has been fully closed on the militarization of American police. In an
amazing multi-part investigative series for
The Guardian, Spencer Ackerman has started to reveal his shocking findings piece by piece—starting with the revelation that Richard Zuley, a Chicago detective for 30 years from 1977-2007, was brought to Guantánamo Bay and hailed as a hero who could get confessions to exact his same tactics on prisoners.
Ackerman details:
But while Zuley’s brutal interrogation techniques – prolonged shackling, family threats, demands on suspects to implicate themselves and others – would get supercharged at Guantánamo for the war on terrorism, a Guardian investigation has uncovered that Zuley used similar tactics for years, behind closed police-station doors, on Chicago’s poor and non-white citizens. Multiple people in prison in Illinois insist they have been wrongly convicted on the basis of coerced confessions extracted by Zuley and his colleagues.
Among the many victims of Zuley are some people who have been wrongfully convicted,
including this man, who spent over half of his life in prison before being exonerated.
In his latest update for The Guardian, Ackerman reveals that Chicago police, much like our government does around the world, is using an off-the-record "black site" named Homan Square to illegally detain and intimidate arrestees:
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.
As it feels on the streets like police are growing more and more brutal, it makes perfect sense that the same people used for the war on terror are also creating and using off-the-record sites to force confessions and railroad people's constitutional rights.
A video interview of a former detainee at this facility is below the fold.