Homan Square torture and Chicago Police revenge plot allegations linked
A botched CPD investigation following the murder of officer Clifton Lewis led to Angel Perez's alleged abuse in the notorious Homan Square police facility
.jpg){kind=link}
Two of the most troubling recent allegations of abuse by the Chicago Police Department — one involving a botched murder investigation and apparent revenge plot, the other involving torture — are directly linked, Noir News has found.
In late 2011, off-duty police officer Clifton Lewis was shot and killed while working as a store security guard. CPD quickly came to suspect that Spanish Cobra gang member Alexander “Flip” Villa was the shooter, and that fellow Cobras Edgardo Colon and Tyrone Clay were his accomplices. In response, CPD, with help from federal authorities, launched a sprawling investigation aimed at convicting the suspects and dismantling the Spanish Cobras. It was named Operation Snake Doctor.
As a result of the investigation, Villa and Colon were eventually convicted, and Clay spent years in jail. Other Cobras were hit with federal drug and weapons charges. But years later, Villa’s attorney, Jennifer Blagg, uncovered disturbing details about how the investigation was conducted. CPD and prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to Villa’s defense team — including FBI cell phone tower data that indicated Villa, Colon, and Clay were not at the scene of the murder, and weren’t even together when it happened.
Just as concerning, internal emails surfaced showing CPD officers told other Cobra members that Villa was a snitch — apparently to provoke retaliation against him. Officers appeared to believe the strategy worked after Villa was stabbed by another Cobra. Rather than raise alarms, they seemed to celebrate the outcome.
“I believe Operation ‘Snake Doctor’ and 6580 has to take the credit for this,” CPD Officer Scott Dedore wrote in an email. “Cline and company tell each Cobra that every time a Cobra goes to jail its Flip’s fault. Unless I got the facts wrong (I often do), Flip was targeted by other Cobras. His associate was left unscathed. It sounds like [the] Cobras are getting the word.”
Officer Christopher Kennedy replied with a winking emoji.
Eventually, Villa and Colon’s convictions were overturned and Clay was freed. All three men are now suing the City of Chicago and several individual CPD officers.
But there’s more to Operation Snake Doctor. Noir News has found that the same investigation led to the detainment — and alleged torture — of a man named Angel Perez.
Perez was taken to Homan Square, a warehouse in Chicago’s west-side Garfield Park neighborhood that, as originally reported by The Guardian, has allegedly served as a secretive, off-the-books CPD detention center rife with abuse. Noir News previously reported that the Department of Justice has also used Homan Square as a hub for joint operations — and was well aware of its use for extrajudicial detention.
As Snake Doctor expanded its reach, two father-and-son drug dealers — Johnny Chaparro and Johnny Mendez — came into investigators’ crosshairs. A customer of theirs, Dwayne Payne, who bought drugs from them to sell, also became a target of the operation, according to a DOJ press release.
As Noir previously reported, CPD obtained a federal wiretap on Payne’s phone as part of the investigation. That’s how they discovered he was in contact with Angel Perez.
According to a lawsuit Perez filed against the City of Chicago, CPD officers pressured him to cooperate in the investigation of Payne — specifically, to set up a controlled drug purchase. Perez said officers took him to a second-floor room at Homan Square, where they handcuffed him to a bar and placed him in ankle shackles for several hours. He alleged that officers threatened to plant evidence on him and send him “to the Cook County jail to be raped by gang members.” Perez further alleged that the officers continued to physically and verbally assault him for hours, and that one of them sodomized him with “a cold metal object, believed to be one of [the] officer’s service revolvers.”
The Chicago Police Department has denied Perez’s allegations of abuse.
Regardless of whether the allegations are true, the legal handling of Perez’s case has raised new concerns. Jason Epstein, the attorney representing Perez in his civil suit against the city, told Noir News he had no idea his client’s abuse allegations stemmed from Operation Snake Doctor.
“I should not be hearing this for the first time from a reporter,” Epstein said. “This should have been made part of a supplemental answer. They should have told me in discovery.”
CPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sam Carlen contributed to the editorial process for this article.