Chicago is reminiscent of the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Party Darling, failed to address many issues surrounding the Chicago Police Department and is deserving of condemnation.
The revelations regarding Homan Square's Black Hole and Torture sent a Loud and Clear message, never mind the MILLIONS spent settling cases of Chicago Police Killing Unarmed Blacks.
Has ANYONE in a position of authority met with protesters? attempted to explain how the SYSTEM will change? Is there any transparency? Where there any prosecutions for Homan Square?
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel continues to exhibit HOW NOT TO GOVERN!
Boston may not be perfect, but the Mayor, Police Commissioner, Community Leaders are doing their best to be proactive and avoid the missteps of Chicago.
To those folks inclined to be defensive about their local police departments, please do your homework about HOMAN SQUARE!
RSN: Chicago Cop Beat Wife in Homan Square 'Black Site,' Document Shows
RSN: Rahm Emanuel, the Face of Democratic Fascism, Deserves to LoseThe Disappeared: Chicago Police Detain Americans at Abuse-Laden 'Black Site'
Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian
Ackerman writes: "The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site."
READ MORE
FOCUS: Charles Pierce | Shoot the Kid 16 Times
Chicago Police Commander Nicholas Roti went to work for Illinois state police [ISP]?
He didn't know about the TORTURE?
Chicago police commander resigns in wake of Homan Square revelations
A senior Chicago police commander in charge of a major unit operating out of the controversial Homan Square police warehouse has resigned, the Guardian has confirmed.
The news came as attorneys for three Homan Square victims announced that they would file the first civil rights lawsuit over the facility with the aim of shutting down the complex likened by attorneys and activists to the domestic law enforcement equivalent of a CIA “black site.”
Nicholas Roti, the chief of the bureau of organized crime, resigned from the Chicago police department last week, Chicago police public affairs officer Mike Sullivan told the Guardian.
In an emailed reply to the Guardian on Thursday night, Martin Maloney of the Chicago police said:
Chief Roti left CPD to become the chief of staff for the Illinois state police [ISP], where he will work for another recently departed senior CPD official who was appointed to be the director of ISP. It’s been in the works for some time.
The organized crime unit, according to its website, is tasked with confronting illegal narcotics, gang activity and vice in Chicago, operations that numerous people formerly held at Homan Square believe led to their incommunicado detentions there.
Roti took charge of the organized crime division in 2010, the Chicago Sun-Timesreported; and led the bureau through a command reorganization in 2011. Published reports indicate Roti is a 27-year veteran police officer.
The Guardian exposed a series of incommunicado detention and abuse at the Chicago police facility, including people being held for extensive periods of time without public notifications to their families or access to attorneys.
Sullivan said that Roti himself did not operate out of Homan Square, but out of police headquarters.
Yet the organized crime bureau was cited by the Chicago police “fact sheet” released on 1 March, attempting to refute the Guardian’s reporting about a complex where 11 people thus far have told the Guardian they were effectively disappeared.
“[S]ensitive units housed at the [Homan Square] facility include the Bureau of Organized Crime (including the narcotics unit),” the fact sheet reads.
Eleven people, seven of them black and Hispanic Chicagoans, have thus far told the Guardian that they have been held at Homan Square. Their detentions most often concerned drug suspicions. On several occasions, while in custody, police interrogators attempted to get detained men and women to either inform on others or deliver guns to the police, sometimes using the prospect of freedom as an enticement. The Chicago police say there is nothing untoward about Homan Square.
According to Chicago city data, Roti’s annual salary was $176,532. A local website cited Roti in 2014 as the 16th highest-paid public official in Chicago. The superintendent of police, cited as the highest paid Chicago public servant, is listed as making $260,000 annually. Mayor Rahm Emanuel makes $216, 210.
The civil rights lawsuit, expected to be filed on Thursday evening in the US district court for the northern district of Illinois, comes on behalf of two Homan Square victims the Guardian wrote about on 4 March: John Vergara and Jose Garcia. They are joined by another man held at Homan Square with them in the same September 2011 incident, Carlos Ruiz, whom the Guardian did not interview.
Vergara and Garcia told the Guardian that masked police police officers “kidnapped” them from a Humboldt Park deli; held them and three others in a Homan Square “cage” without booking or access to counsel for eight to nine hours; and released four of them that evening without charge after Vergara threatened to tell a civil rights attorney what the police had done.
“The plaintiffs would like the facility to be shut down,” said attorney Blake Horwitz, who is representing Vergara, Garcia and Ruiz.
“They’ll be seeking compensation for their injuries, and they’ll be asking that the officers be held liable and responsible for their actions, and for the officers to be punished.”
The lawsuit comes a day after US congressman Danny Davis and Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin hand delivered a letter to US attorney general Eric Holder requesting a Justice Department investigation into Homan Square.
Chicago Drops Legal Objection to Release Video of 2013 Fatal Shooting
Brady Dennis, The Washington Post
Dennis writes: "In a stark reversal Wednesday, Chicago city officials asked a federal judge to rescind a protective order and make public a video that shows a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager suspected of car theft in 2013."
READ MORE
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. (photo: AP
n a stark reversal Wednesday, Chicago city officials asked a federal judge to rescind a protective order and make public a video that shows a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager suspected of car theft in 2013.
Chicago attorneys said in a court filing that the city would drop its opposition to the release of video showing the shooting of 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman, who was killed after fleeing from police in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. The city previously had insisted the video should remain under seal while a wrongful-death suit went forward, but on Wednesday it abandoned that argument.
“The City of Chicago is working to find the right balance between the public’s interest in disclosure and the importance of protecting the integrity of investigations and the judicial process,” Steve Patton, an adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and head of the city’s law department, said in a statement. “In this case, the city sought a protective order consistent with its decades-long policy. We recognize the policy needs to be updated … we are working to be as transparent as possible.”
A judge is expected to rule on the request as soon as Thursday.
The move comes roughly a month after Emanuel announced the creation of a Task Force on Police Accountability, the system of oversight and training for Chicago’s police force. One of the group’s assignments: reviewing the city’s decades-long policy not to publicly release videos and other evidence relating to alleged police misconduct until investigations surrounding them are finished. The task force is scheduled to present recommendations for any changes by the end of March.
The about-face also comes after the release last November of a dash-cam video showing a white officer firing a barrage of shots — 16, to be precise — and killing black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014. At the time of the shooting, official accounts painted a picture of a teenager, armed with a knife he would not drop, shot and killed while approaching or lunging at officers. Only when graphic video footage of the shooting was released last fall did it become clear that the 17-year-old had been veering away from officers, and that one had opened fire on him within seconds of arriving.
More than a year after the fatal shooting of the teenager, prosecutors charged veteran police officer Jason Van Dyke with first-degree murder. The case led to public protests and a federal civil rights investigation of Chicago’s police department, as well as intense pressure on Emanuel to overhaul the city’s police force — or even to resign himself. Van Dyke’s attorney has said the officer feared for his life when he opened fire. Emanuel, however, said the shooting violated “basic moral standards that bind our community together.”
Last month, amid the ongoing uproar, Emanuel fired Chicago police superintendent, Garry F. McCarthy, saying, “He has become an issue, rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction.”
In the video at issue in Wednesday’s filing, a high school security camera captured police chasing Chatman as he fled in 2013. The central dispute, according to an Associated Press report, is over whether Chatman had something in his hand and turned toward police before he was shot; the city says he did, Chatman family lawyers say he didn’t. The object in Chatman’s hand ultimately turned out to be a small box.
No comments:
Post a Comment