2015-2016

Homan Square: US inquiry into Chicago police ‘should also cover facility’

  • August 5, 2016
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Justice Department pressured to expand civil rights investigation as Rahm Emanuel’s challenger calls secret detention warehouse’s inclusion ‘crucial’ A major investigation into Chicago police should be extended to cover the detention warehouse Homan Square, a police interrogation facility exposed by the Guardian, a group of politicians have said. The Cook County board of commissioners, which oversees the second largest county in the US including the entirety of Chicago, approved a measure on Wednesday calling for the DoJ to expand its landmark investigation into the city’s police department “to look into allegations of civil and human rights violations” at Homan Square….

Freedom Square: Making Black Lives Matter

  • August 5, 2016
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In Chicago, the #LetUsBreathe Collective has transformed a lot adjacent to the Homan Square facility, exposed as a Chicago Police Department “black site” by The Guardian last year, into a beautiful organizing space aptly called Freedom Square. While the city continues to divest social resources from our communities, this site of torture has become a site of freedom and visionary love in a neighborhood that is over-policed and over-incarcerated. According to Million Dollar Blocks, North Lawndale committed nearly $241 million to incarceration in 2005-2009. Following the Black Lives Matter march and civil disobedience at CPD’s Homan Square in Lawndale July…

STUDY: Police Body Cameras in Danger of Being Used as ‘Instruments of Injustice’

  • August 5, 2016
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The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights examined body-worn camera policies in 50 municipalities. It was not impressed. In the wake of Korryn Gaines’ death at the hands of Baltimore County police officers this week, a new report on the nation’s police body-worn camera programs proves especially relevant. Yesterday (August 2), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Upturn released a report that examines the programs implemented by 50 departments—and finds them lacking. “Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard” zooms in on the programs implemented by police departments in 50 U.S. municipalities: Albuquerque, Aurora (Colo.), Austin,…

North Carolina Bans Public Access to Police Dash Cameras

  • July 14, 2016
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What good are police body cameras, or police car dash cams, if the footage they record is off limits to the public? That question might best be posed to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who yesterday signed into law a bill making that footage inaccessible to the general public, including everyday citizens who were recorded in the footage and might need it to prove police misbehavior. Despite widespread outcry, including protests and submission of a petition signed by more than 3,000 people, House Bill 972 received little opposition in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 48 to…

The DOJ Will Investigate Alton Sterling’s Shooting

The Louisiana attorney general said he would fully cooperate with the federal investigation. WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, early Tuesday morning. “The FBI’s New Orleans Division, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana have opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling,” said David Jacobs, a spokesman for the department. “The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a…

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