# US Police operating Detention Blacksites? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577 "2015-02-25T11:43:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/81 "2015-02-26T00:14:33Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I must say I am not surprised at the massive defensiveness being exhibited by people here. > > Where is the famous US questioning of State Authority. > > Quis custododiet ipsos custodes? I don’t question state authority specifically–I’m a skeptic. I’m often skeptical of state action, but I am just as skeptical of journalists, who represent a pretty entrenched and unaccountable power structure of their own and who have also often been caught in lies and fabrications. The default position for any skeptic is to demand rigorous proof from someone making a positive claim–and that’s the journalist here. I’m always in favor of more information, so I hope we get more and that some independent group with investigatory power (who cannot simply be turned away at the door) looks into all of this. Also, there is not really any such thing as “US Police”, this is the Chicago police department. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/82 "2015-02-26T01:23:40Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a factual question that can only be answered by an investigation. It’s not a debate. Picky picky picky. It’s a slow part of the week for outrage, maybe the OP wants to keep the pitching arm warmed up. And look on the bright side, this way we get a chance to lay our bets before the evidence comes in (there’s wagering going on in the Bill O’Reilly thread). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/83 "2015-02-26T01:37:27Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I must say I am not surprised at the massive defensiveness being exhibited by people here. > > Where is the famous US questioning of State Authority. > > Quis custododiet ipsos custodes? We have a story from a notably anti-American publication posted by a notably anti-American poster. The story recounts the claims of a few people regarding their experiences without providing a single third party testimony or any actual evidence. It might be an example of actual police abuse, but nothing yet posted supports that conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/84 "2015-02-26T02:39:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Yes, pretty much, unless you’ve been charged. It is interrogation that triggers the Fifth Amendment right to counsel, and “critical stages of prosecution” that trigger the Sixth Amendment one. Just being in the jailhouse doesn’t trigger anything, at least not under the Federal Constitution. Most states law constitutional or statutory provisions requiring access to counsel during detention though. At what point can you demand a habeas hearing? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/85 "2015-02-26T02:54:28Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Quis custododiet ipsos custodes? Not to be pedantic (though using this phrase could be viewed as the height of pedantry), but it’s actually “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”.\* > [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Also, there is not really any such thing as “US Police”, this is the Chicago police department. I wondered about that myself - are there roving squads of Chicago policemen gallivanting around the USA, disappearing suspects right and left? The F.B.I. is gonna be so _pissed_. \*which is Latin for “Who put the artificial sweetener in the custard?” ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/86 "2015-02-26T05:33:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The problem with sorting through issues like this is a lot of times frankly low IQ, uneducated persons who are in police custody or questioned often do not understand the legalities of their situation. For example someone who was asked to come in for questioning, and ends up being grilled for eighteen hours without legal counsel may end up feeling after talking to a reporter that his rights were violated. But the fact was, for example, he was free to leave at any time. He just did not know that, and never asked. Also, he never asked for an attorney. Or, since it’s a non-custodial interrogation he may have asked and the police may have just ignored him or said “we need you to keep answering questions.” A custodial interrogation has to end when someone asks for their attorney, but a non-custodial interrogation doesn’t, the police can just ignore it and keep asking questions. But the person likewise can ignore their questions and leave, too. > > Take a specific case mentioned in the article. Someone is arrested as a protested and held for “most of the day, and denied access to an attorney.” You are not actually entitled to immediate access to an attorney. It’s a matter of constitutional law that at custodial interrogations, line ups or identifications, or any judicial proceedings your attorney is allowed to be present. Good call, **Martin**. The Atlantic (Tanya Basu) [interviewed](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/behind-the-disappeared-of-chicagos-homan-square/385964/#disqus_thread) Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice Project, about Ackerman’s allegations in The Guardian: > [@](#): > > **Tanya Basu:** Why was Homan Square unknown for so long? > > **Tracy Siska:** I think it’s because under the law, people have a right to get counsel when arrested or when held but you’re not provided free counsel like a public defender. Mostly who they take to Homan Square are black and brown and poor kids who can’t afford to hire private counsel while they’re in custody. That’s a little nuance in the law that few know about. > > **Basu:** What does it mean when Ackerman says records would disappear? > > **Siska:** We changed that rule. What used to happen at Homan Square is that prior to a year ago, if you get arrested and you get brought down anywhere in any district, you would not pop up in the city computer as being arrested until they processed the police report, which could take anywhere from an hour to 15 hours. If they “arrested” you, then they have to report it. But if they don’t “arrest you,” nefarious things could happen and they could interrogate you without a lawyer. > > And they would move you around from district to district. So [for example] if the family shows up or the lawyer shows up and they say you aren’t here but you are, they’ve denied you access. But if they say you’re at [district] 17, then move you to 15, and then 12, they can question you without counsel. At Homan Square they don’t process paperwork about your arrest. You’re just gone. No one knows. > > **Siska:** About a year ago, we changed the rule. After arriving at a CPD facility, [officers] have 20 minutes to one hour to put you into the system, and you appear on the system city-wide. Any officer anywhere in the city can find where you are. And anywhere they move you to, every time you move, [officers] have 20 minutes to one hour to put you in so you show up on a computer. Each time you move, your right to phone calls and Miranda rights starts all over again. The full interview at the link. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/87 "2015-02-26T05:50:59Z")
Just to be fair and balanced, there is [ample reason](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/19/chicago-police-military-interrogation-guantanamo) to be suspicious of CPD wrongdoing: > [@](#): > > For example, in a 2000 case that resulted in a successful federal civil rights lawsuit, a Latino teenager was held for four days chained to a wall in an interrogation room, where he was not only questioned repeatedly, but denied bathroom access and left to soil himself. During the boy’s civil rights trial, officers could only prove that they fed him once during the four days. The teen eventually confessed to a murder he did not commit. After he spent just a few weeks in jail, another suspect was arrested with the murder weapon and confessed shortly after his arrest. How many others locked up have not been so fortunate? > > Most infamously, there is highly decorated Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge who, during his 23-year tenure on the force from 1970 to 1993, used the techniques he learned from interrogating the Vietcong as a military policeman in Vietnam on black suspects in Chicago. These techniques included Russian roulette with pistols and shotguns, burning suspects on radiators, suffocation with typewriter covers, beatings with phone books and electric shocks to the ears, nose, fingers, and testicles. The [Chicago Reader](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/police-torture-in-chicago-jon-burge-scandal-articles-by-john-conroy/Content?oid=1210030) covered Police Torture in Chicago as well. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/88 "2015-02-26T14:17:32Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > If a person comes into a room during a party, drops their pants, takes a dump on the floor, and proceeds to yell as loud as they can that parts of Jupiter are emanating from their body, people aren’t going to really argue with them. What if they yell that parts of Jupiter are issuing from Uranus? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/89 "2015-02-26T14:39:32Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > At what point can you demand a habeas hearing? Serious answer: I don’t know (other than in my own jurisdiction, which is after 24 hours without booking and 72 with.) I didn’t get to the second half of crim pro and it’s not my field. > [@camille](#): > > Just to be fair and balanced, there is [ample reason](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/19/chicago-police-military-interrogation-guantanamo) to be suspicious of CPD wrongdoing: > > The [Chicago Reader](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/police-torture-in-chicago-jon-burge-scandal-articles-by-john-conroy/Content?oid=1210030) covered Police Torture in Chicago as well. There is ample reason to be suspicious of wrongdoing by _all_ police forces. But I am not automatically going to assume the NYPD has a house for suspect-buggerin’ in the Bronx just because of Abner Louima or whatever. Maybe this Homan Square thing has legs, and maybe it doesn’t. In all honesty, I think this particular debate would have gone a bit better if the OP didn’t have a history of making implausible assertions. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/90 "2015-02-26T14:42:26Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Not to be pedantic (though using this phrase could be viewed as the height of pedantry), but it’s actually “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”.\* _Custododiet_ gives you the Discount DOuble-Check. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/91 "2015-02-26T14:54:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Until this week, the Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin only knew of the warehouse next-door – like the mother – as a police facility in a struggling Chicago neighbourhood. > > “I hadn’t heard of the sort of CIA or Gestapo tactics that were mentioned in the Guardian article until it was brought to my attention,” Boykin said in an interview outside Homan Square. “And we are calling for the Department of Justice to open an investigation into these allegations.” Seems a sensible course of action? > **['Gestapo' tactics at US police 'black site' ring alarm from Chicago to...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/police-black-site-chicago-washington-politicians-human-rights)** > > Shocked politicians and human-rights groups call for inquiries into Homan Square as Rahm Emanuel caught up in swirl of questions over secret facility ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/92 "2015-02-26T15:17:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In all honesty, I think this particular debate would have gone a bit better if the OP didn’t have a history of making implausible assertions. To be fair, _The Guardian_ is a lot better than it was. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/93 "2015-02-26T15:25:50Z")
I actually quite like the Grauniad in its current incarnation. Not sure why they’re so focused on US events, but they seem to be breaking more stories than most US news sources. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/94 "2015-02-26T15:30:08Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I actually quite like the Grauniad in its current incarnation. Not sure why they’re so focused on US events, but they seem to be breaking more stories than most US news sources. My guess is that they’ve developed a significant U.S.-based readership since going online. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/95 "2015-02-26T16:33:45Z")
So, as the story starts to firm up, maybe the ad hominem abuse could stop. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/96 "2015-02-26T16:44:48Z")
When does the hyperbole stop? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/97 "2015-02-26T16:51:54Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > So, as the story starts to firm up, maybe the ad hominem abuse could stop. You brought it on yourself by focusing on hyperbolic sensationalism instead of whatever story might actually be in there after removing the bullshit, so no sympathy here. I’m still not seeing much of this story on the main stream sites as a major thing, but if it gets traction then that could change. I seriously doubt this will morph into ‘Detention Blacksites’ or CIA gestapo tactics, and at most will be an individual police department abusing the system and being smacked down for it…and the Chicago police don’t exactly have the best reputation in any case, so it’s not exactly going to be stunning news if they are playing fast and loose with the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/98 "2015-02-26T16:54:09Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > So, as the story starts to firm up, maybe the ad hominem abuse could stop. That depends on whether you’re going to admit that the US police are not operating Detention Blacksites. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/99 "2015-02-26T16:57:00Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > So, as the story starts to firm up, maybe the ad hominem abuse could stop. As soon as “US Police operating Detention Blacksites” becomes equal to “A well known city run building in the middle of Chicago where prisoners are sometimes held for a few hours while being processed before going to the detention center may be a location where Chicago police are not following proper procedures.” ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577/100 "2015-02-26T17:05:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > That depends on whether you’re going to admit that the US police are not operating Detention Blacksites. As you well know, I never said that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-police-operating-detention-blacksites/713577.md?page=6)