The Beachwood Radio Hour #46: Explaining Chicago's Black Site

A guide to Homan for our comprehension-challenged local media.

SHOW NOTES

00: Strawberry Rock Show.

1:10: Koffin Kats at Reggies last Friday night.

2:25: Explaining Homan.

* "How do you think the local media will react?" "Oh, they'll try to knock it down. That's their mindset."

* Spencer Ackerman lives in Brooklyn and works for Guardian US.

* The context: Zuley.

* Siska Guardian Op-Ed.

* Touchless torture.

* Tribune: Abuse Citywide, Therefore Homan Not A Story.

18:48: Brooke Fraser at the Bottom Lounge last Friday night.

20:16: What The Guardian Originally Reported.

* What is a black site?

* The distinction between Homan and district station houses.

* No one said Homan was hidden by a cloaking device; Area 2 was a far more public building and Burge tortured people there in secret too.

* The nature of Homan is exactly why some detainees are brought there.

* Now we have a roster of victims, through follow-ups by the Guardian and other non-Chicago outlets.

* Dear Trib: Lawyers familiar with Homan are more useful to talk to than lawyers who aren't, duh.

* Being able to retrieve your property isn't the same as being able to see your client or family member, duh.

* The CPD itself calls Homan secretive.

* Ackerman states that abuses such as those at Homan are happening citywide. Multiple times. But again, there's a reason why Homan is distinctive.

* Ackerman states that the abuses at Homan are just the latest example of abuses that have happened historically - and throughout Chicago police facilities.

* The CPD itself says most detainees at Homan are involved in drug cases, which in Chicago - and America - means mostly poor and of color.

* "Unlike a precinct . . . "

* The CPD refused to provide any records or answer any questions to refute the allegations.

* A coalition including the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild and First Legal Defense Aid got fed up and went to CPD to complain about Homan. The result: CPD actually changed its General Orders on arrestee procedures. Were those lawyers lying?

* Real-time tweets from lawyers about Homan and not being able to find their clients.

* Even the lawyers the Trib talked to called the CPD statement "laughable."

* A team of attorneys could not find Church through 12 hours of 'active searching.' No booking records existed. It took contacts in the mayor's office to even learn of Homan Square.

* The Tribune's cherry-picked attorney.

* Enough sources yet?

* Cook County Medical Examiner mysteriously discovers a cause of death after the Guardian publishes.

* Former Chicago police chief.

* Police used to use the term "shadow sites."

1:04:36: Koffin Kats.

* From Esquire to Glenn Beck.

* How do you knock down a story like this without ever talking to the cops?

1:09:15: Koffin Kats.

* The unlearned lessons of Jon Burge.

* Is the Chicago media racist? Yes.

* These abuses happen all across the city - almost exclusively to poor people of color.

* In the absence of a CPD response, the allegations stand. As they should.

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