Secret Jail Built in Denver

With the Democratic Convention only a week away, Denver is gearing up to keep law and order during it. First they have gotten rid of all their homeless and now preparing for the hundreds if not thousands who might be arrested during the convention.

Activist groups say the converted warehouse poses a threat to civil liberties. The city maintains the facility is needed in case of mass arrests during the Democratic National Convention.

The makeshift holding center, dubbed "Gitmo on the Platte" by activists, is located on city-owned property near Steele Street and 38th Avenue. Newly-installed security cameras guard the exterior, chain-link fences and barbed wire form cells inside.

"We feel the city should be ashamed of this secret prison they've set up," said Re-create '68 organizer Glenn Spagnuolo.

"The public was never going to view this place, it was just found out," Spagnuolo said. "They got caught with this place. They told our lawyers in negotiations that this place didn't even exist."

"This was never a secret site," said Undersheriff Bill Lovingier, the city's director of corrections.

Lovingier said the city had long planned to build a new holding facility for the DNC, which triples the processing speed of the city jail. Lovingier said the Steele Street warehouse will be able to process 60 arrestees an hour.

"This center is designed as an arrest processing site," Lovinger said. "There will be no housing or long-term detentions."

Barbed-wire cells, security cameras, chain link fences, what are they planning for? This is more like the arrangements that the Chinese government has done for the Olympics than a major city planning for an upcoming Political Convention.

Then again Denver might have been asked by Barack Hussein Obama to build it. It would be the perfect place for him to stash the PUMAs until after the election.

Either way you look at it. The Democratic Convention might be fun to watch. Especially if riots happen both outside and inside the convention hall.