‘They squeeze people. That’s what they do’
Jose, a 30-year-old Chicagoan whose last name the Guardian agreed not to publish, did not have access to his attorney at Homan Square. He is among 19 people identified among the 7,185 arrests who turned themselves into police at the warehouse – and whose access to a lawyer ended inside.
According to court and police documents from Jose’s case, an anonymous informant told officers a man nicknamed “Chuie” sold him marijuana from the address where Jose lived. (Not only did the search warrant not name Jose, it described a taller man.) Police showed up at his house in force in February 2013, guns drawn.
Jose wasn’t home. But his wife and 10-year-old daughter were, as well as his daughter’s friend, who had come over to work on a school project.
Police took a substantial amount of marijuana and what Jose said was about $10,000 in cash. The arrest report listed the cash at $4,670. Jose said he never got his money back.
After consulting with his attorney, Jose and lawyer Nick Albukerk traveled to Homan Square the following month. Albukerk said he advised officers that Jose was invoking his rights against self-incrimination and was not to be questioned. But the lawyer did not enter Homan Square as his client was led inside and placed in a room by himself.
According to the police report, it was 10pm. Jose took a Xanax for his nerves. He began to nod off, until he heard banging on the door and a demand to “get up”.
“Are you going to help yourself?” Jose remembered the officer telling him.
“What do you mean, help myself? ‘Are you going to talk to me?’ ‘Nah, my lawyer was just here. You could have just said this in front of my lawyer. I know my rights’ … He wasn’t trying to hear it. He was just blabbing away, like ‘Oh, you think you’re a smart-ass,’ this and that.
“That’s what they do, man: they get people who don’t know their rights,” Jose continued. “That’s probably how they came upon me and my house – probably someone ended up talking to them and they dry-snitched on me. All they knew was that I lived there.
“They squeeze people, and then they go get somebody else. That’s what they do.”
Additional reporting by Zach Stafford and Phillipp Batta in Chicago and the Guardian US interactive team
Article Appeared @http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands