When I read Spencer Ackerman’s story in the Guardian about a Chicago Police “black site” right here in the city — where CPD supposedly keeps people in secret to interrogate them without access to a lawyer — I was skeptical. Scott Greenfield is too:
How is it possible that this off-the-books facility existed for so long, and yet nobody, no lawyer, no judge, raised its existence, whether in a criminal proceeding following an illegal interrogation, or at arraignment when a beaten defendant appears with no cognizable explanation for the imprint of the Glock on his face?
What about a civil suit? Where are the § 1983 actions for the deprivations of civil rights? Even if the state courts were part of some conspiracy to keep this black site out of the courtroom, are the federal courts part of the conspiracy as well? And what of the family of the “at least” one dead guy? Didn’t they go to a lawyer to address this little detail, that their father or husband turned up dead?
Scott doesn’t like when people speculate in his comment section, so I’ll do it here.
Part of the answer to Scott’s question of why this hasn’t come out is that this is Chicago and that’s how we roll. Former Commander Jon Burge tortured people for years before it came out. Actually, it came out all the time, but just from criminal scumbags, not anyone that the good people of Chicago were willing to believe.
I’m sure this place really exists, and I’m sure people are occasionally interrogated there. I’m also pretty sure there have been some shenanigans about whether or not somebody’s client is actually there. However, I also think that calling it a “black site” is just hype for the Guardian.
Big city police departments have lots of buildings that aren’t technically police stations — armories, administrative centers, supply depots, specialized units, stuff like that. It’s not hard to imagine that if you’re a cop who’s grabbed somebody up and you want to talk to them without the distractions of a busy police station (or their lawyer) you might want to take them to one of these buildings. It’s police-controlled, but it’s not the first place someone will look.
Or suppose you’re a cop attached to one of those special units that operates out of that Chicago-Police-building-that-is-not-a-station, maybe a unit with some kind of intelligence function. You’re trying to develop an informant, so you pick the guy up and bring him to your office. Or you happen to stumble on a crime in progress and make an arrest.
In any case, meanwhile, somebody trying to help the guy you picked up — perhaps his mother — might call 1-800-LAW-REP4 and a lawyer like Eliza Solowiej (mentioned in the Guardian story) might try to visit him. She can’t find him at any of the stations, but being a somewhat infamous thorn in the side of the Chicago Police, she knows to try Homan Square.
Since it’s not a police station, it’s probably not set up to receive the public, including lawyers looking for their clients. And the cops there are even more surly than usual because they’re not used to people walking up and asking questions. It’s probably not normally used to hold people either, so the folks guarding the doors don’t really know how to deal with it. Easier just to tell the lawyer he’s not there and hope she goes away. Or maybe she gets a cop who knows the rules and he lets her in.
(Both things happen in the Guardian story. Besides, you don’t need a “black site” to make cops lie to defense lawyers.)
By the way, the Chicago Police say that Homan Square houses the Bureau of Organized Crime, the SWAT Unit (which would explain the military-ish vehicles), Evidence Technicians, the CPD ballistics lab, and a few units that have undercover officers. I’m pretty sure it’s also where you go when someone steals the radio out of your car and the police call you to say the found it. And from other information, I think it includes city-wide anti-prostitution and anti-gang functions. Most of these aren’t exactly street cops who arrest people all the time, so it’s not the first place people think of when they’re looking for someone who’s been arrested.
I imagine they all got a memo from headquarters about what to do if a lawyer drops in. Followed by a word-of-mouth warning that there are going to be reporters around, so for God’s sake don’t do anything stupid.
Update: My laptop battery was running out of juice when I wrote this (It went into hibernation in the middle of the page refresh after I clicked Publish!), so it was kind of a rush job. I wanted to clarify that when I say that the Homan Square building isn’t really a station, what I mean is that it’s not one of the 22 district stations that Chicagoans think of when we talk about “going to the police” to report a crime or a car accident or something like that. CPD still calls it a station.
“I’m also pretty sure there have been some shenanigans about whether or not somebody’s client is actually there…”
I’m honestly surprised at some of the doubt cast by criminal defense lawyers. In my experience- even in the suburbs- the “I don’t know who you’re talking about… nobody by that name here” game is played all over the place. It’s been an issue with the CPD going back some time as well.
I wrote about this yesterday. People who think lawyers can just show up at the station, say they want to talk to a clinet, and waltz back into an interrogation room have no idea how it actually goes down (even when the client is actually where you think he is). That initial access to clients is 100% controlled by people who don’t want the access to occur.
Yeah, I’ve heard accusations of police playing “hide the suspect” for a long time. Right after the Brown’s Chicken murders in Palatine in 1993, the police grabbed up a suspect and kept him moving around for hours to keep lawyers from catching up with him. (He didn’t do it.)
I think some of the incredulity is because the Guardian article calling it a “black site” kind of implied it’s some kind of official CPD secret detention program. If the article had just said, “The Chicago Police sometimes detain suspects at their Homan Square station — often because the arresting officers work there — and this can make it hard for family members and lawyers to find them, which may be intentional” then it wouldn’t have been much of a story. As you point out, it’s kind of Dog Bites Man.
As for Homan Square, it probably has some secretive intelligence units that don’t like people sniffing around, but the place itself is on Google Maps.
…and, as it relates to some of what was brought up, here’s a case from 12 years ago, when First Defense Legal Aid went after CPD for restricting access to clients:
http://openjurist.org/319/f3d/967/first-defense-legal-aid-v-city-of-chicago
That’s kind of fascinating, although I don’t really understand everything it’s saying. I sort of assumed the rules made it very difficult for a lawyer to get in to see a client who wasn’t asking for him, because most of FDLA’s clients are minors, for whom I’m guessing the parents could create the attorney-client relationship.
Second city cop talks about it. It’s the HQ for Intel. Some other stuff too.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13350456&postID=8713839301941896157
Yeah, I saw that. There was an earlier post too. I don’t think it’s anything like a “black site,” but I’m sure some shady things have happened there. It’s my impression that a lot of specialized units — especially intel — can get out of control. There’s no public visibility, and there’s not much internal visibility either, so it can be a cushy job for people who have connections downtown. Low visibility + political connections + secrecy = I can do whatever I want.