Trinidad DC Police decides Crime trumps citizens Right to Movement

From Albert N. Milliron, Politisite.com

We attempted to provide all sides to this issue. So where do you stand? Is Americans right to movement above and beyond a police chielf desciding to limi travel due to a high crime area? We want to hear from you!

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers’ identification and ask whether they have a “legitimate purpose” to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative is the latest crime-fighting attempt by Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who have been under pressure from residents to stop a recent surge in violence. Last weekend was especially bloody, with seven slayings, including three in the Trinidad area.

“In certain areas, we need to go beyond the normal methods of policing,” Fenty (D) said at a news conference announcing the action. “We’re going to go into an area and completely shut it down to prevent shootings and the sale of drugs.”

Source: washingtonpost.com via politisite

ACLU of Washington Files Suit

A federal court has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI to disclose whether 10 people who have been repeatedly stopped and questioned at border crossings are listed in a federal terrorist watchlist. The order came in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of behalf of the 10 citizens, including a pharmacist from Edmonds, Washington, seeking an end to the abusive stops.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of citizens who suffered lengthy stops, questioning, body searches, handcuffing, excessive force, separation from family members and confinement by customs officers, because their names are incorrectly included in government watchlists.

The plaintiffs include Shimrote Ishaque, an Edmonds pharmacist and an observant Muslim, who has experienced repeated and abusive stops while returning to the United States. In January, 2006, he was detained at gunpoint and held for 90 minutes at the Blaine border crossing, because a federal watchlist incorrectly identified him as “armed and dangerous.” He experienced similar delays in June 2004 at the Blaine crossing, and at SeaTac airport when returning from an Islamic conference in Trinidad and from a visit to Pakistan. Each time he was eventually cleared and allowed to re-enter the country.

Source: aclu-wa.org via politisite

Can you say Police State?

Can you say Police State? The Examiner has the scoop on a controversial new program announced today that would create so-called “Neighborhood Safety Zones” which would serve to partially seal off certain parts of the city. D.C. Police would set-up checkpoints in targeted areas, demand to see ID and refuse admittance to people who don’t live there, work there or have a “legitimate reason” to be there. Wow. Just, wow.

Some of the words used to describe such a plan by those quoted in the Examiner story include “breathtaking” and “cockamamie,” but that hardly begins to scratch the surface. Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles actually said that measures of this sort have “been used in other cities.” Which cities are those, Mr. Nickles? Warsaw?

Today’s proposal appears to be a desperate attempt by the city to tamp down recent violence that has ravaged the city, especially in Ward 5. The “Neighborhood Safety Zones” would last up to 10 days. It’s a struggle to think of words to describe such a plan other than authoritarian or ghettoization.

The full description of this plan from the mayor’s press release is below.

Source: bluelight.ru via politisite

Groups eye legal roadblocks to D.C. police checkpoints

WASHINGTON — Police in the nation’s capital set up controversial vehicle checkpoints Saturday in a neighborhood reeling from gun violence, with civil liberties groups considering legal action and closely observing officers.

Police in neon yellow vests stopped motorists traveling through the main thoroughfare of Trinidad — a neighborhood near the National Arboretum in the city’s northeast section. Police checked drivers’ identification and turned away those who didn’t have a “legitimate purpose” in the area.

Source: chicagotribune.com via politisite

Scenes from Trinidad Checkpoint – Lawsuit Approaching?

On Saturday night, D.C. police converged on a small, one-way street in Trinidad to man the first of their newly-approved Neighborhood Safety Zone checkpoints. Officers stopped cars driving south down Montello Avenue NE, which is hardly a major entrance point to the area, with Florida Avenue and its tributaries just to the south. (In fact, I tried for a while to enter via the checkpoint but kept ending up on the other side of it without passing through the gauntlet.) Officers stood in the middle of the intersection and asked drivers for I.D. and an explanation of their business in the neighborhood. Sometimes, an officer would use a flashlight to peer into the vehicles (does that constitute plain view if they find something?) If drivers didn’t have a good enough reason to be in the hood, the officers waved them to the left. According to legal observers from the ACLU, about 90 percent of the cars were rejected, often because the drivers didn’t live in that immediate block. Most people parked around the corner and walked back.

Source: washingtoncitypaper.com via politisite

So where do you stand? Is Americans right to movement above and beyond a police chielf desciding to limi travel due to a high crime area? We want to hear from you!