Chicago Police's so-called 'black site' mischaracterized

I'm a long time advocate of truth in journalism. If you're going to report something, get both sides of the story. Report the facts and don't spin an article to promote an agenda.

I also believe there is corruption within all facets of public service, from the IRS, DHS, CIA, you name the acronym, to local government and police brutality.

Chicago has been demonized with such a degree of hatred that being a Chicagoan is akin to being sub-human. Any negative story that comes out of the city whether it's true or not is taken in the worst possible way.

And now the Black Site article is just another example of spin reporting condemning a city to fuel a movement.

I support truth, and nothing more. I'm not a police lover or hater. I depend on law enforcement, as without it there would be serious wild wild west tooth-for-a-tooth vigilante justice.

All I'm saying is, get the facts before you pass judgment. Don't follow the hysteria. Think for yourself. There are too many sheep in the fold anyway following blindly over a cliff in my opinion.

Not exactly a "black site".


[link to www.wbez.org]

Chicago Police's so-called 'black site' mischaracterized

Lawyers and local crime reporters say a widely-shared article from The Guardian mischaracterized a Chicago Police Department facility called Homan Square as the equivalent of a CIA "black site."

Black sites house detainees who undergo interrogation in highly secretive prisons. But the non-descript Homan Square building on the city’s West Side is not exactly off-the-books.

In the past few years WBEZ reporters and other journalists have been to the facility for tours and interviews as well as press conferences.

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Frank Main says reporters on the police beat know Homan Square. He’s visited 20 or 30 times during his career. He said the massive building located at 1011 S. Homan was once a Sears Roebuck warehouse.

“The reasons I’ve been there is going for essentially ‘show and tells’ where the police will show huge amounts of drugs that they’ve seized in various cases. And in those situations you’ll have lots of media; television cameras, radio,” he said.

Main said Homan Square is a secured site. Visitors need to show ID and give a reason for their visit.

“There’s some sensitive police bureaus there," he said. "For example, there’s the organized crime bureau which runs gang investigations and drug investigations. And a lot of people in those units are undercover.”

[link to www.wbez.org]





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Angels or Serpents?

One of the great myths in literature is Satan’s downfall in Milton's Paradise Lost.

In the myth, Satan is initially one of God's favorite angels, one who betrays God by leading a rebellion. In the different stages of this rebellion, Satan is portrayed in the guise of different historical epochs.

Early on, for example, Satan is a classical hero who is able to persuade other angels to join in his rebellion, filling them with the rhetoric of liberation and utopian worldviews.

But in each subsequent manifestation, Satan is diminished a little more, until he is reduced to the snake in the Garden of Eden, seducing Eve into biting the apple. In this, his final manifestation, his true character and intent reveals itself:

No longer is he fighting for some high principle. In fact, it’s clear he never was. Rather, Satan emerges a malevolent, narcissistic creature trying to seduce the most innocent into his evil designs and his lust for destruction.

In this transformation from hero to snake, the myth of Satan’s fall aptly describes the trajectory of Chicago’s wrongful conviction movement over the last four decades.

Once a movement internationally renowned for freeing the wrongly convicted, more and more evidence emerges that this movement has released killers and rapists, destroyed the lives of honest cops, and undermined the criminal justice system. It has also left a hole in the lives of the family members of victims, who see the killers of their loved ones walking free and becoming wealthy.

Despite this growing body of evidence, the advocates of this movement--many of them highly credentialed academics--desperately try to carry on with their claims that they are operating from some deep principle, rather than some destructive intent and intense narcissism.

The latest anti-police fairy tale manufactured by the wrongful conviction crowd is a case in point. It appeared in the Guardian, an England-based newspaper with a clear sympathy for the wrongful conviction movement.

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