guardian | Chicagoans, particularly black and brown citizens, lament that as all
too true – that being interrogated and abused, frequently without
public notice or legal counsel, has transformed the denial of
constitutional rights in their city into a kind of disturbing norm.
Late last year, following decades of profound systematic abuse,
institutional racism and the repeated denial of civil rights, Chicago
citizens asked the United Nations to classify what their notoriously
brutal police force does to them, in an American city, as a violation of
international anti-torture statutes.
Contained within an appeal to the UN Committee Against Torture – the same watchdog that has looked into Guantánamo Bay and the police killing in Ferguson, Missouri
– were a litany of tales describing highly damaging abuse and
injustice, completely out of step with alleged crimes. One was the story
of a 22-year-old black man, who was beaten so badly when Chicago police
found him smoking marijuana that he awoke from consciousness in Cook
County jail with “22 stitches in my tongue, two facial fractures,
bruised ribs, scrapes all over my body … an orbital fracture, a nasal
fracture”.
Late last week, after multiple Chicago lawyers came forward to the Guardian with allegations of suspects being interrogated without public notice or legal counsel at a warehouse known as Homan Square, more young black men from Chicago began telling their stories of being abused, off the books, inside the facility.
“A monopoly and application of the use of illicit violence is the
modus vivendi of the Chicago police department and of governance in
Chicago,” Nesbitt said.
“Violence and the use of illicit violence versus people of color,
particularly blacks and Latinos, is as routine in Chicago as traffic
lights.”
