For the last year or so, the issue of whether or not cops have been too eager to punish — and even kill — African Americans has dominated the news. Yet, one very big story relating to cops and racial tension has been completely swept under the rug. Guardian reporter Spencer Ackerman has been reporting on a secret warehouse in Chicago where cops have allegedly detained thousand of suspects for interrogation — sometimes for days — without access to counsel or otherwise allowed to exercise their rights. Some have even called it a “domestic black site.” The city of Chicago insists what they’re doing is legal, however, they’ve been trying keep things under wraps. “After months of disputing the Guardian’s reporting, the Chicago police only made detailed information available after the Guardian sued them for it,” reports Ackerman. “Vast amounts of data documenting the full scope of detentions and interrogations at Homan Square remain undisclosed.”
But in his latest report, Ackerman has been able to unearth some revealing data:
More than 82% of the Homan Square arrests thus far disclosed – or 2,974 arrests – are of black people, while 8.5% are of white people. Chicago, according to the 2010 US census, is 33% black and 32% white.
That seems like ample reason for the Justice Department to make inquiries. The DOJ investigated the Ferguson, Missouri, police department following the highly publicized police shooting of Michael Brown because, among other things, Justice Department officials found that “although African Americans make up 67 percent of the population in Ferguson, they accounted for 93 percent of all arrests between 2012 and 2014.” The Justice Department later cleared Officer Darren Wilson of wrongdoing for the shooting, but the Justice Department’s broader report on the Ferguson police department’s practices was damning.
However, there’s one obvious and cynical reason why Chicago has been able to avoid federal scrutiny:
It’s true that Chicago has an enormous crime problem at the moment and extraordinary measures may be needed to rein in things. Nonetheless, reporters ought to ask the Obama administration some tough questions about what’s happening on Rahm Emmanuel’s watch and whether or not what the Chicago police are doing warrants a federal inquiry.