We think we've climbed so high
Up all the backs we've condemned
We face no consequence
This is the beginning of the end
I repeat:Civil rights group to protest as first checkpoint introduced
Washington, D.C. (Map, News) - A coalition of civil rights leaders today is expected to denounce Mayor Adrian Fenty's plan to quarantine crime-ravaged neighborhoods as a knee-jerk reaction implemented with little community input or support.
"Granted there are people who are tired of the violence, but I don't know if this is going to solve anything," said Mark Thompson, who heads up the NAACP Metropolitan Police Task Force. "And it is almost impossible for our leadership ... to condone a pseudo-military presence in an African American neighborhood."
The task force, which has coordinated on policy with the Metropolitan Police Department for more than a decade, includes the NAACP, the Black Police Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. At 10 a.m. today the group will converge on the Trinidad neighborhood, specifically the 1400 block of Montello Avenue Northeast, where the first "Neighborhood Safety Zone" vehicular checkpoint will be conducted.
More locations are to come, Lanier said this week.
"Our concern is that when you effectively isolate at the least, and quarantine at worst, a particular community, you have to make sure that all other means have been exhausted to try and bring about some kind of improvement in that community," Thompson said.
The zones are designed to increase police visibility and deter crime "by prohibiting vehicles with no legitimate purpose to enter the area." Using manned police checkpoints, officers will stop all vehicles, demand identification from the occupants and ask their purpose for entering.
A legitimate reason for passing would include going to work, dropping a child at school, going to a doctor's office or church, or visiting a relative. The elderly and disabled will not be stopped, according to the MPD, but friends of residents within the zone will be turned away.
"Friends may enter the neighborhood on foot," according to MPD's Web site.
Proving legitimacy will require personal identification and "information sufficient for determining the accuracy of the reason for entering the area," for example a telephone number of the address to which the person seeks entry.
D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, chair of the public safety committee, on Friday demanded from Lanier a host of information tied to the safety zone initiative, including any legal opinions issued by the Office of the Attorney General. In a letter to the chief, Mendelson said the program's "questionable treatment of District residents' civil liberties" is reason for concern.
More on the zones
- Checkpoints will last five to 10 days, manned by minimum five trained officers
- Officers directed to get operator ID, vehicle description, tag number of any car denied access to zone
- Pedestrians may not be stopped
- Vehicles may be subject to search when there is probable cause
mneibauer@dcexaminer.com
"Neighborhood Safety Zone" vehicular checkpoint
Using manned police checkpoints, officers will stop all vehicles, demand identification from the occupants and ask their purpose for entering. A legitimate reason for passing would include going to work, dropping a child at school, going to a doctor's office or church, or visiting a relative. The elderly and disabled will not be stopped, according to the MPD, but friends of residents within the zone will be turned away.
.... so. My in-laws own farmland in the backwood of Kentucky.
Yay for safehouse! ^______________^
