Chicago, IL — Handcuffed to a wall inside a cell with no windows, Deanda Wilson was forced to urinate on himself after a police sergeant allegedly held a knife to his throat during an interrogation at Homan Square. Falsely charged with the manufacture and distribution of heroin, Wilson and his co-defendants were imprisoned for 15 months before a judge found them not guilty.

As the Cook County Commissioner and a state representative both call for a federal investigation into the CIA-style black site known as Homan Square, Chicago police union officials are fighting to incinerate decades of police misconduct records. Although the city, an investigative journalist, and a University of Chicago law school professor have battled in court to preserve the misconduct records, police unions argue that red-flagged officers should not be judged by their marred past.

While Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin and the Board of Commissioners prepare to address a resolution on Wednesday calling on the DOJ to expand its investigation into Homan Square, leaders of the Chicago NAACP and state Rep. La Shawn Ford are working to prevent the Chicago Police Department from destroying any police misconduct files older than five years.

“My understanding is it’s simple: don’t destroy the records. Keep them forever. In today’s time, it’s clear that we can do that,” asserted Rep. Ford. “The only people or organization that destroying the records would benefit would be the police.”

Last month, Spencer Ackerman, a reporter for The Guardian who exposed the Homan Square scandal, testified before the Cook County Commission revealing that more than 7,000 people had disappeared within the black site between August 2004 and June 2015. Instead of formally arresting suspects at Homan Square, Chicago cops are accused of shackling suspects to the wall for hours without bathroom breaks while violating their constitutional rights by threatening and beating them without the presence of an attorney.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/chicago-police-fight-destroy-misconduct-records-launch-homan-square-investigation/#jUpFyMY1zQiC3BDh.99