Police

Gitmo in Chicago

Gitmo in Chicago

Gitmo in Chicago

By Stephen Lendman | Global Research.ca

Gitmo in Chicago

What London’s Guardian reported on Tuesday is shocking, disturbing, yet unsurprising given the scourge of neocon fascist governance in America.

Washington’s war on humanity at home and abroad should be a wakeup call for everyone. Wars without end rage against one nation after another.

Independent ones are targeted for regime change. Washington’s goal is total colonization of planet earth, stealing its resources and enslaving its people.

US cities are virtual battlegrounds like never before. America is unsafe to live in.

Washington provides police nationwide with enormous amounts of combat weapons, related equipment and supplies – making them virtual military units.

The line between cop and combat ready soldier is less clear than ever in US history. Militarized police wage war on freedom. It’s a hair’s breadth from disappearing altogether.

When cities become battlegrounds, ordinary people risk being treated like enemies – losing all constitutional protections mattering most.

The alarming state of today’s America should scare everyone. Fundamental rights don’t matter. Anyone can be targeted, arrested and disappeared. Perhaps never heard from again.

This writer’s home city Chicago may be ground zero for some of the most disturbing practices. London’s Guardian broke the story demanding world coverage and outrage.

On February 24, it headlined ”The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site.’ ”

It’s an “off-the-books (Homan Square) interrogation compound,” said the Guardian – some miles west from where this writer lives.

A “nondescript warehouse (is) the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.” People are lawlessly arrested, detained, denied access to lawyers up to 24 hours, and tortured during secret interrogations.

Detainees are kept off “official booking databases. Some young as 15 are painfully shackled for long periods, beaten and terrorized.

Homan Square is in Chicago’s west side North Lawndale district. It’s home to the original 1905 Sears, Roebuck and Co. property.

Many of its buildings are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Perhaps Gitmo in America will be included one day. More on the Guardian’s report below.

Chicago police have a longstanding reputation for brutality. They have virtual carte blanche authority to operate with impunity.

They take full advantage. From 1972 – 1991, detective Jon Burge got away with torturing over 200 detainees. Instead of dismissal and prosecution, he was promoted.
Dozens of victims complained. Suits followed. Finally, after 21 abusive years, he was fired.

Community outrage stopped a March 1993 Fraternal Order of Police plan to honor him with a float in Chicago’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.

On October 21, 2008, he was indicted on two counts of obstructing justice and one count of perjury. On June 28, 2010, he was convicted on all counts. He’s the exception proving  the rule.

It took decades for partial justice. Few police are prosecuted –  almost never one of high rank. Burge rose from street cop to detective commander. Over two decades, he got 13 commendations and a Justice Department letter of praise.

His crimes were well-known. A code of silence hid them. He was honored until his luck ran out. He got off mildly.

He received four and half years in prison. His crimes and similar ones committed by other rogue cops should never have been allowed in the first place.

This writer personally knows a Chicago cop torture victim. He committed no crimes. Yet he was lawlessly arrested, detained and brutalized for being Black in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He remains justifiably outraged. Rogue cops weren’t punished. Nor their superiors. During Chicago’s May 2012 NATO summit, Chicago police viciously assaulted peaceful protesters.

Dozens were hurt. Victims had head injuries, broken bones and teeth knocked out. Many required hospitalization.

In Black and Latino communities, police brutality rages. Cracked skulls, arrests and brutality in detention reflect longstanding practice.

Chicago is a mini-police state. Last year, a Chicago organization called We Charge Genocide produced a report charging city police with “systematic horrific & punitive police violence against Black and Brown youths on a daily basis.”

ACLU human rights program director Jamil Dakwar says

“(i)t’s time for systemic policing reforms and effective oversight that make sure law enforcement agencies treat all citizens with equal respect and hold officers accountable when they cross the line.”

Chicago police lie saying

“CPD abides by all laws, rules and guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at Homan Square or any other CPD facility.”

“If lawyers have a client detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed to speak to and visit them.”

“It also houses CPD’s Evidence Recovered Property Section, where the public is able to claim inventoried property.”

The Guardian report explained systematic abuse of power and denial of fundamental constitutional rights.

“At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square (so-called) ‘interview room’ and later pronounced dead,” it said.

Brian Jacob Church was one of the 2012 NATO Three protesters. He was arrested and held incommunicado at Homan Square for nearly 24 hours before being booked at local police station.

He commented to the Guardian as follows, saying:

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place. 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.”

“…I wasn’t allowed to make any contact with anybody.”

He was painfully shackled for about 17 hours.

“I had essentially figured, ‘All right, well, they disappeared us and so we’re probably never going to see the light of day again.”

Lawyers seeking access to Homan Square are routinely turned away. According to Chicago attorney Julia Bartmes:

“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place – if you can’t find a client in the system, odds are they’re” at Homan.

Read more

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can b reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

 

Posted by Red Pill Reports in US News
The Police Threat Is Too High

The Police Threat Is Too High

The Police Threat Is Too High

By Paul Craig Roberts | PaulCraigRoberts.org

The Police Threat Is Too High

Image credit: Ryan Adams, Twitter

 

The hypocrisy of American police is beginning to bother even law and order conservatives. The New York Police Department is rivaling the black community in Ferguson in keeping alive the murders of their community members.

We are constantly reminded of how dangerous it is to be a police officer. A total of 50 police officers were reportedly killed last year in the “line of duty,” but the police themselves managed to kill 1,029 Americans during the same time period, most of whom were unarmed and innocent of wrongdoings.

In other words, any encounter between the public and the police is more than 20 times more dangerous for the public than for the police.

That should raise questions about the absence of restraint on the ability of police to use deadly force as a first resort. Yet authorities and white communities invariably defend police violence against the public.

If Americans had half-decent educations, Americans would know that power comes from precedent. The police, like the executive branch, have now established themselves above the law. The laws that apply to the public do not apply to police, US presidents, presidential appointees, NSA, and CIA.

The URL below provides two short videos of Montana police officer Grant Morrison shooting to death in separate incidents two unarmed drivers pulled over by Morrison in routine traffic stops. In both cases, Morrison’s first actions are to scream obscenities and pull the trigger. Morrison comes across as completely crazed. It is inexplicable that Montana permits an armed lunatic to roam the streets pulling over cars. You try doing that.

Clearly the police are privileged and, thereby, unaccountable.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/09/1356607/-Montana-officer-Grant-Morrison-shoots-and-kills-his-second-unarmed-man-No-charges-in-either-case

Read more

Posted by Red Pill Reports in US News
After Killing of Two Officers, NYPD Union Declares Itself a “Wartime” Police Department

After Killing of Two Officers, NYPD Union Declares Itself a “Wartime” Police Department

After Killing of Two Officers, NYPD Union Declares Itself a “Wartime” Police Department

By Rachel Blevins | Ben Swann

NYPD Union Declares Itself a “Wartime” Police Department

Following the shooting that killed two New York police officers, the NYPD’s union has issued a statement announcing that in response, it has become a “wartime” police department.

As previously reported, Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, after he who ambushed and shot them both, in an alleged attempt to avenge the death of Eric Garner. Brinsley’s ambush of the two officers occurred shortly after he shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore, and then posted his plans to strike back at the police to her Instagram account.

According to the New York Post, Liu and Ramos were “working overtime as part of an anti-terrorism drill in Bedford-Stuyvesant,” when they were “shot point-blank in the head” by Brinsley.

Newsmax reported that the NYPD’s union, the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, issued a statement regarding the way the department is responding to this incident, and the way it is working to prevent future threats:

Starting IMMEDIATELY: At least two units are to respond to EVERY call, no matter the condition or severity, no matter what type of job is pending, or what the opinion of the patrol supervisor happens to be.”

The statement went on to say that from this point forward, there would be no unnecessary arrests by New York police officers.

Read more

Video: NYPD Now Officially a ‘Wartime’ Police Department after Cops Shot at Anti-Terrorism Drill

he New York Police Department has declared “war” after two officers were killed Saturday in their squad car while taking part in an anti-terrorism drill by a gunmen said to be taking revenge for the death of Eric Garner.

In the wake of the officer shootings, the NYPD’s union New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association issued a bulletin showing that the NYPD are most certainly not taking things lightly.

In read in part, “The mayor’s hands are literally dripping with our blood because of his words actions and policies and we have, for the first time in a number of years, become a ‘wartime’ police department. We will act accordingly.”

Posted by Red Pill Reports in US News