WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The police “black site” at Chicago’s Homan Square and similar interrogation sites across the United States must be shut down to stop the ongoing civil rights violations and police brutality, Progressive Democrats of America National Issue Team Coordinator Jeanne Dauray told Sputnik.
“The first step to fixing the issue would be to shut down Homan Square and similar facilities across the country,” Dauray said on Friday. “Homan Square represents the disappearance of constitutional rights that are continually happening in the US and the mass criminalization of our society.”
Dauray explained that US police are treating civilians in the communities as enemy combatants, and the military tactics they employ lead to poor and inaccurate information from suspects.
“They [local police] are being given military training and weapons, and there’s no place for those in local police. The military training needs to be reversed,” Dauray said.
The communities therefore need to re-examine the role of local police across the United States, she argued, adding that “the role of community police is to protect and serve.”
“Federal authorities are also encouraging military veterans to be hired, and hired by local police forces. Their training is not appropriate for the job of local police,” she said.
With this new mentality and police force, Dauray argued, local police are less concerned with catching the real perpetrator and rather just whoever they can get a confession out of and convict.
“This is part of the Chicago Police Department culture, and it’s gone underground recently with not being as obvious as before,” she said. “It will take a strong hand and participation of the community and oversight legislation to fix this problem.”
Progressive Democrats of America will definitely continue to protest “black sites” while putting pressure on legislators to correct the issue nationally, Dauray added. “We hope the US Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder will get involved more, but we have no idea what the future holds.”
Progressive Democrats of America participated in the rally on Thursday organized by the Chicago-based advocacy groups Chicago Anonymous, the Gay Liberation Network and Stop Mass Incarceration Chicago.
The Guardian reported on February 24 that police was using an unofficial site in an abandoned warehouse at Chicago’s Homan Square to interrogate criminal suspects. Detainees were beaten, shackled, and held for prolonged periods of time while being denied access to an attorney, according to media reports.
The Chicago Police Department has denied that it was involved in the alleged abuses and detentions at Homan Square.
