Groups affiliated with Black Lives Matter set up encampment in secretive detention and police facility, and say they will stay until demands are met

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Protesters in Chicago are occupying a secretive detention and police facility for the eighth consecutive day to demand its closure and lobby for police reform. The site, known as Homan Square, has been the subject of a series of Guardian investigations that revealed officials “disappeared” more than 7,000 people, mostly black men, and allegedly subjected many of them to severe abuse.

The groups affiliated with Black Lives Matter have set up an encampment known as Freedom Square that they say theywill keep running until their demands are met, including the closure of Homan Square and redirecting of its operating funds to community resources.

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They are also seeking the retraction of a proposed bill to designate attacks on officers as hate crimes. Activists say the bill, known as Blue Lives Matter, improperly dilutes the intended purpose of hate crime statutes to protect marginalized groups, and puts protesters at risk of prosecution after altercations with the police. A similar bill passed in the state of Louisiana earlier this year.

“We did the demonstration to show that police are not here to protect people, but instead harm us,” said activist Camesha Jones, referring to both alleged torture inside Homan Square and the Blue Lives Matter bill introduced in Chicago city council recently.

Their encampment began last week after local groups #LetUsBreathe and Black Youth Project 100 marched on the west side of Chicago in honor of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s “Freedom Summer” rally in Chicago, eventually chaining themselves outside the police “black site”.

Activists say they selected the site because the building is a symbol of the ongoing violence against their community.

“[Homan Square] is just emblematic of the fact that our system is boldly and unapologetically violent and destructive,” said Damon Williams, the activist helping lead the encampment.

“There are a lot of things you can hide,” he said, describing the battle activists face when trying to hold officers accountable and proving their case within their movement. “But at a certain point you can’t hide a large building.”

Their occupation has also drawn attention to the recent death of 16-year-old Pierre Loury who was shot by Chicago police one block away.

Advocates are fighting to have the police report of his shooting, which has yet to be made public, released to the family.

At the site, they have built a makeshift library for the local community, serve free food with a grill they try to have burning “around the clock” and provide tents for anyone who wants to join the demonstration to stay the night.

“We believe that this is what will keep our community safe and these are the type of resources the city should be investing in us,” Jones said. “Not the police.”

Williams said while occupying the site, he encountered several passersby who told him they had been abused inside.

“Being here all day and asking people if they know what that is has been so powerful [because] so many people have said ‘yes… I have been tortured in there’,” Williams said.

“They didn’t come here for a protest – they just came here to see what this was all about,” he said. “They coincidentally were people who had been tortured.”