Chicago police officials lied about beating and assaulting prisoners in secret facility. (From the Acerbic Politics "Had Enough Yet?" desk.

Rss@dailykos.com (josie Duffy) · Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 1:33 pm

In March 2015, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) released a statement denying that law enforcement officers used any physical force against detainees and prisoners at Homan Square, the police department's secret interrogation facility. “The allegation that physical violence is a part of interviews with suspects is unequivocally false, it is offensive, and it is not supported by any facts whatsoever,” stated CPD at the time.

They lied.

According to recently acquired documents, Chicago police punched, hit, slapped, Tasered, and beat at least 14 prisoners at Homan Square.

These documents were obtained by The Guardian "in the course of its transparency lawsuit about the warehouse," and were only released after they "sued under Illinois’ freedom of information law for extensive documentation about the detentions and interrogation practices of the warehouse."

Some of these prisoners were seriously injured, even hospitalized. For others, the violence had lasting physical effects. Many of the stories are extremely disturbing.

Take, for example, the story of Mark Rideaux. From the Guardian:

[In 2001] Rideaux was secured by his left wrist to the wall of a second-floor cell. […] According to the hospitalization case report […] a desk officer “heard a scream” coming from the cell and found Rideaux “unconscious” from a “self-inflicted” injury.

“While in custody, victim, having one hand (left) cuffed to wall with a flex cuff, managed to put another flex cuff around his neck,” an unspecified officer’s report states. Police cut off the cuff and sent him to Mount Sinai hospital for treatment.

The police claim that Rideaux cuffed his own neck, willingly and with only one hand. According to the police, he managed to do this even though he was already cuffed to the wall. It is unclear where he would have even obtained this additional set of cuffs.

Unsurprisingly, Rideaux disputes law enforcement’s account of what happened.

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