Before he was taken to Homan Square, Angel Perez held out his hand toward officers for a handshake, according to surveillance video acquired by the Guardian.
Officers had already stopped Perez on his restaurant-delivery route the day before, believing he knew an alleged drug dealer they were interested in. The small amount of marijuana and half a Vicodin they found in his Rav-4 convinced them they had leverage on Perez.
So the next day, October 21 2012, he agreed to meet at Al’s Beef. Camera footage shows Perez walking over to their car with his hand extended for a handshake, unarmed and unassuming. The officers turn him around, push him against the car, cuff him and take him to Homan Square – where, he alleges, they sexually assaulted him.
The footage that follows, which the Guardian is publishing, is rare video showing the Homan Square detention operations that the Chicago police have downplayed. They have instead pointed to the evidence lockers at the warehouse and the press conferences they hold there for drug busts to insist that the Guardian’s expose of their incommunicado detentions are overblown.
But the footage, taken from surveillance cameras inside and on the perimeter of Homan Square, shows two officers walking a handcuffed Perez through a blue door inside the warehouse marked “prisoner entrance” at 3.49pm. He was taken to a second-floor room, he said, where he contends police inserted a metal object, believed to be a handgun barrel, into his rectum.
The Guardian does not have footage of the forced anal penetration. Perez filed a lawsuit for damages in 2013 from the incident. Recently, four other Homan Square survivors, none of whom claim sexual torture, joined his lawsuit.
At 4.52pm, cameras record two officers, one of them who was also present during the initial walk-through, escorting Perez through the “prisoner entrance” door. His hands are unrestrained and he is rubbing his face.
Near simultaneous footage from a different camera, marked by timestamp, records Perez’s journey. At 5.05pm, they motion him back toward the blue door – until they seem to change their mind: one of them starts pushing the uncuffed Perez away from it. They walk in that direction, off the frame.
Perez told the Guardian that the assault occurred within the first hour, after they transited through the blue door the first time. He experienced a panic attack and agreed immediately to contact the dealer and make an arranged purchase of heroin with $170 in cash the police gave him.
Homan Square footage in the Guardian’s possession show police moving Perez in and out of the “prisoner entrance” door twice more, ending at 6.39pm on the timestamp, to attempt contacting the dealer. He said he made the drug purchase that evening.
