get your papers ready if you plan on going through DC

[nico]

http://www.examiner.com/a-1423820~Lanier_plans_to_seal_off_rough__hoods_in_latest_effort_to_stop_wave_of_violence.htm

Lanier plans to seal off rough hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence
Jun 4, 2008 3:00 AM (1 day ago) by Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers, The Examiner
» 1 day ago: Lanier plans to seal off rough hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence «
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Filed under: WASHINGTON , Michael Neibauer and Bill Myers , Neighborhood Safety Zones
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) -
D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate Neighborhood Safety Zones. At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesnt live there, work there or have legitimate reason to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her All Hands on Deck weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.

Under todays proposal, the no-go zones will last up to 10 days, according to internal police documents. Front-line officers are already being signed up for training on running the blue curtains.

Peter Nickles, the citys interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have a narrow focus.

This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities, Nickles told The Examiner. Im not worried about the constitutionality of it.

Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal breathtaking.

Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbias law school, said the plan was cockamamie.

I think they tried this in Russia and it failed, she said. Its just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.

The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry Tommy Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.

Theyre really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets, Thomas told The Examiner.

Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. moving towards a police state.

Staff Writer Scott McCabe contributed to this report.

This begs the question: what happens if someone's response to the cops asking them why they're going where they're going is "because I'm an American citizen and have a right to travel throughout my country?"

 

ETA: if you're arrested under this BS, what can/will they charge you with?  Failure to follow a lawful police order?  One would think any half decent attorney would have a field day proving that such an oder is hardly lawful.  The ACLU has voiced their displeasure over this, but I wonder what would happen if a dozen people got themselves arrested at one of these checkpoints in protest.

[Manedwolf]

Wait...what?!

This CAN'T be okay with the Constitution in any sense of the word.

Besides. If you seal off a "problem" neighborhood, good luck getting any business or investment in it ever again!

[El Tejon]

Can we seal off K Street?

[K Frame]

Hum...

Chances are you are NOT going to:

A) be traveling through one of those neighborhoods, and

B) WANT to travel through one of those neighborhoods.

[Ex-MA Hole]

"Peter Nickles, the citys interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have a narrow focus.

This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities, Nickles told The Examiner. Im not worried about the constitutionality of it.



I want to be sick.

[mtnbkr]

Might be more effective if they sealed off the problem areas and didn't let the folks inside come out.

Chris

[nico]

Hum...

Chances are you are NOT going to:

A) be traveling through one of those neighborhoods, and

B) WANT to travel through one of those neighborhoods.

I agree, but we all know the precedent is set with the *expletive deleted*bag who had to have done something wrong; not the upstanding citizen who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

What happens if this goes smoothly/without protest and they decide it's a good idea to keep the human waste out of nice neighborhoods?  Am I going to have to show my dinner reservations or platinum card to go to dinner/shopping in NW DC?

I know my title could have been better, but "papers please" seemed too generic

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

stretch much?

[Manedwolf]

Hum...

Chances are you are NOT going to:

A) be traveling through one of those neighborhoods, and

B) WANT to travel through one of those neighborhoods.

Yes, but that rules out any chance of urban renewal via gentrification. Ever. Nobody will invest in it. Nobody will open a business. All they can is hope for it all to burn down.

[mtnbkr]

Oh, I dunno, they'll probably lap it up in that town.  It'll be almost as good as a gated community to them.

Chris

[K Frame]

"Yes, but that rules out any chance of urban renewal via gentrification. Ever."

Jesus Christ...

They are NOT erecting Berlin walls around entire communities.

Read the article.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

real estate prices drive the gentrification   i would love to video any of you in the neighborhoods in question.

[Manedwolf]

"Yes, but that rules out any chance of urban renewal via gentrification. Ever."

Jesus Christ...

They are NOT erecting Berlin walls around entire communities.

Read the article.

I did.

If you were an investor, would you want to invest in a neighborhood subject to periodic blocks of outside visitors? That's not exactly good for business, in a number of ways.

"I can't visit your store, the police said I'd be arrested because I couldn't prove I was going to that store!" ...they're not going to come back.

Maybe if they actually locked up criminals they catch, instead of the revolving door justice for "disadvantaged urban youths"?

I am pretty sure I know what these neighborhoods are like. In Miami, they were called Overtown and Liberty City. Today, they're smaller. Former parts of them have been gentrified into upscale business districts, and more is pushed back all the time. That's the only thing that works.

[nico]

"Yes, but that rules out any chance of urban renewal via gentrification. Ever."

Jesus Christ...

They are NOT erecting Berlin walls around entire communities.

Read the article.

They're also not stopping foot traffic, so what's the point?  Do you really think this will have a positive effect on anything? 

[K Frame]

No one is investing in those sections of the cities right now. If they're going to target the sections of DC I think they're going to target, there's virtually no business structure to begin with, and hasn't been for a long time. The businesses that DO exist serve locals who live around there -- hole-in-the-wall roach coach restaurants, liquor stores, bodegas, maybe a barber shop or two -- but nothing that you would consider to be a thriving business base, and certainly nothing that is going to draw in people from outside that area.

The huge crime rates in those areas is one of the main reasons why no one is investing there currently.

Crime will drive potential businesses, services, etc., out of an area, and keep them out of a particular area, a LOT faster than a strong police presence ever will. 

[Manedwolf]

No one is investing in those sections of the cities right now.

The huge crime rates in those areas is WHY no one is investing there.

Crime will drive potential businesses, services, etc., out of an area, and keep them out of a particular area, a LOT faster than a strong police presence.

Granted. Nobody wants nightly breakins by crackheads, either, or stray rounds from gangstas coming through their window.

I just think that such restrictions on movements would be the proverbial nail in the coffin, preventing even the demolition and gentrification that's overhauling such areas elsewhere. Miami is a very good example...as real estate prices go higher and higher, development of new offices and housing is pushing further and further from the beach and downtown, and that means that

A) the warzones get bulldozed and

B) the decent people owning houses there, after decades of zero sell value, can seriously cash in on property values because the developers want it, and even

C) people who outright own a business like a landmark restaurant will have a prosperous clientele coming in without fear of venturing into a bad area. (This has happened, too! Lots of formerly inaccessible 'soul food' and Cuban cusine places are doing very well!) And thus the area is renewed.

Actually, it's sort of a return, at that. When Overtown was new, it was heavily African-American, but safe. People of all races would come there to see Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin and the like performing in theaters long shuttered.

[K Frame]

"And thus the area is renewed."

And the roaches scatter to a new area and bring it down.

It's been happening in the city since the 1960s when "urban redevelopment" destroyed long-established, stable, cohesive, poor communities in Washington. Combined with the general rise in drug use and crime of the 1960s, urban redevelopment by bulldozer was another one of the long litany of liberal failures.

[Manedwolf]

"And thus the area is renewed."

And the roaches scatter to a new area and bring it down.

It's been happening in the city since the 1960s when "urban redevelopment" destroyed long-established, stable, cohesive, poor communities in Washington. Combined with the general rise in drug use and crime of the 1960s, urban redevelopment by bulldozer was another one of the long litany of liberal failures.

Well, agreed that when it's a liberal policy of government-run renewal, it'll fail.

I'm talking more about market-driven. The developers want to build high-rent projects, so they'll offer longtime residents VERY nice sums for their property. There's no seizure involved, just people whose house in a bullet-riddled area wasn't worth $20k for decades suddenly being offered $500k by investors looking to build a bunch of office towers and Spanish-tile-roof villas. They...uh...tend to take it.

Considering the price of real estate in Metro D.C., I'm kind of surprised that hasn't happened there, yet. What prevents that?

[K Frame]

Much, if not all, of the 1960s urban redevelopment WAS market driven.

Governments used emiminent domain laws to seize entire neighborhoods, which were bulldozed and replaced with high-rise luxury apartment buildings and high-rent office buildings. The residents were offered buyouts (in those days, quite a few of the residents of those areas DID own their own homes), and many refused to take them, just the same as the process happens today. You get some people who are willing to sell, you get others who won't sell under any circumstance.

Southwest Washington DC was, in the 1960s, almost completely transformed in this manner.

What used to be thriving communities are now soulless concrete jungles.

Southwest DC, where at the time most of the city's poor blacks lived, was specficially targeted because it was nicely sandwiched between the Federal District and all those beautiful views over the Potomac River into Virginia.

There's one other problem with your "this will keep rich people from offering a gazillion dollars to every poor schmoe who lives there" theory.

These neighborhoods are, again if I'm correct which ones are going to be targeted first, primarily rental neighborhoods. The people who live there aren't going to be getting the benefit of those vast sums of money that are going to somehow magically appear -- the property owners will. They're residents? They're not going to be Palm Beach Condos. They're only going to get eviction notices.

Then there's also the issue that these neighborhoods are generally DEEP within larger blighted zones. It's going to take years, if not decades, for any gentrification to reach them through the process of creeping in at the edges.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

just a reallity check here. the prime group to be excluded is the white suburban libertarian kids coming down to buy pot.  the turf wars the dealer conduct as well as the stickup action are a nuisance to all. whiles its good to hear the outrage perhaps those far away could beseech their local kin to cop at home. sadly the carnage is often teens. you haven't lived till you u hear a mom talk about losing 2 sons to the "victimless" crime and her concern that the next time she hears shots it will be her 13 yearold this time  who just started working as a look out

[freakazoid]

Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her All Hands on Deck weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.

I find this pretty scary.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i find it scary that they accidentally left out the word voluntary about the searches

[nico]

Crime will drive potential businesses, services, etc., out of an area, and keep them out of a particular area, a LOT faster than a strong police presence ever will. 

strong police presence = good

"neighborhood safety zone" checkpoints = bad

My point is just that the police should be able (and expected) to enforce the law without subverting the Constitution.  That so many police chiefs (especially this one) seem to have no problem with ignoring the Constitution is troubling, to say the least.  Adequate protection for witnesses in criminal cases (ie: allowing people to testify without being afraid for their or their family's safety) would go a lot farther to reduce crime than this will. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

nico you live near enough to go down and challenge this abomination. in real life as opposed to a keyboard. of course that would mean you gotta travel 20 miles. and be in trinidad after dark. report back

[Balog]

Why are we arguing if this will be good for business, as opposed to if this will be good for the Constitution? Am I the only one who thinks cops saying "You can't enter this neighborhood unless we say you can" is a bad thing?