http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8060402205.html
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."

The checkpoint will stop vehicles approaching the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE, a section of the Trinidad neighborhood that has been plagued with homicides and other violence. Police will search cars if they suspect the presence of guns or drugs, and will arrest people who do not cooperate, under a charge of failure to obey a police officer, officials said.


The enforcement will take place at random hours and last for at least five days in Trinidad, with the option of extending it five more days. Checkpoints could be set up in other neighborhoods if they are requested by patrol commanders and approved by Lanier.

The strategy, patterned after a similar effort conducted years ago in New York, is not airtight. There are many ways to get in and out of Trinidad, not just on the one-way Montello Avenue. And pedestrians will not be stopped, which is something critics say might render the program ineffective.

"I guess the plan is to hope criminals will not walk into neighborhoods," said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large). "I also suppose the plan is to take the criminal's word for it when he or she gives the police a reason for driving into a neighborhood."

Since taking over as chief in December 2006, Lanier has struggled with the issue of violent crime. She has added patrols, revived a unit specializing in getting guns off the streets and changed commanders in six of the city's seven patrol districts. Last weekend, officers were close enough in one case that they heard the barrage of gunfire coming from a triple homicide on Holbrook Street in Trinidad.

The program is aimed at the city's most troubled areas. The 5th Police District, which includes Trinidad, has had 22 killings this year, one more than all of last year. Since April 1, the Trinidad neighborhood has had seven homicides, 16 robberies and 20 assaults with dangerous weapons, according to police data. In many cases in Trinidad and across the city, gunshots are fired from passing cars, victims are found in cars or cars are used to make fast getaways.

"We have to try to take away the things that are facilitating the ability to commit crime," Lanier said.

Leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union said yesterday that they will be watching what happens closely and that legal action is likely.

(Article has two more pages at link - 1911)

The above link shows the article being responded to by the Law Dog at http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Papieren, bitte!
In one of the most absolutely cocked-over ideas I've seen in all my born days, the City of Washington D.C. has decided to set up "Neighborhood Safety Zones" in certain areas of the District of Columbia.

Once a neighborhood is declared a "Neighborhood Safety Zone" DeeCee Police will stop all vehicles entering these zones and demand identification proving that the driver lives in the neighborhood, or provide a -- and let me be accurate here -- "legitimate reason to enter the neighborhood".

Anyone not providing papers identification or a "legitimate reason to enter the neighborhood" will be -- and I quote -- "forced to leave".

Anyone objecting to being refused entry into the "Neighborhood Safety Zone" will face arrest for failing to obey police.

This sort of bushwa is EXACTLY what you bloody well get when the sodding government is the only folks allowed to carry guns. This sort of absolute felching gradoo is EXACTLY what you get when the citizens are disarmed.

Shame on the DC Police department. Shame! You are supposed to be peace officers, not some mouth-breathing knock-off of the gods-be-damned gestapo. And that goes double for Mayor Fenty, Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Attorney General Peter Nickles. Where, in the name of all that's holy, do you think that you are, World War 2 Warsaw?

What is next? Tell me, do. What is next -- issuing various coloured triangles to undesirables?

You two-bit, four-flushing, knock-off, arrogant, el-cheapo tin-plate Mussolinis. You pack of dime-store Himmlers with delusions of adequacy.

This. Is. America. You have obviously forgotten this.

American citizens do not -- I will say again my last, slowly, for the DC City Government -- American citizens do not need to give a reason -- legitimate or otherwise -- for driving anywhere on any Freyja-be-damned tax-payer-funded public sodding street.

How dare you stop a tax-paying American citizen driving on a tax-payer funded American street and demand -- demand, by God! -- a "legitimate reason to enter the neighborhood" ... here's your "legitimate reason" -- damn your eyes -- because I want to and it's none of your penguin-squicking business!

To think it would come to this -- in the Capital City of our Nation -- a city in which is enshrined the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- that the public servants of the citizens of that city would happily indulge in the signature evil of the police state.

Tell me, truly -- are you going to train your cops to say, "Papieren, bitte" before demanding a "legitimate reason" to be about on a public road? Just to make the whole process complete?

Or will you teach them the phrase in Russian? Maybe Chinese?

Why the lot of you haven't been horse-whipped around the courthouse square for even daring to suggest this crap is beyond me.

I guess that no one in the DC Metro police has ever read the Constitution. Come on guys, it's even housed in your jurisdiction. Go over to the national archives once or twice and give it a reading.

Of course, because that is the absolute foolproof way of preventing crime.
So using this logic, DC will become the first all nude city in permanent lockdown? And how much is this going to cost taxpayers to build those glass houses or will they just install cameras in every home?

Unbelievable. Just friggin' unbelievable.

If these people don't fit the definition of a traitor...what will?

So basically, if you're just going along minding your own business, they can come along and demand to see "your papers, please." Hope they at least have the decency to say it with a German accent...

Remember, Enforcements best line. "We were only fallowing orders."

why is this bullshit not all over the headlines today?

this ladies and gents is why if you give up one freedom, you give them all up, this is a sign of the next step of the plans, questioning, lock downs etc.

I'm all in favor of preventing crime but not at the expense of my freedoms as an American citizen.....

i may not always love the things our nation does under various leaders as they come and go, but what happened 200+ years ago suits me just fine and i am pleased to be here.... at least until the nation we know is no longer recognizable.

Hello
I think she (the police chief) is just bitchy 'cause the Supreme Court hasn't sided with their fascist gun-control bullshit laws.

guido2 in Houston

actually, this whole program is being operated by DC's new special police force.....

Shit like this is why I've been against bullshit like "sobriety checkpoints" and the like for years. The problem with them is that with things like this, there's a presumption of guilt, which is NOT the way we're supposed to do it. You're assumed to be drinking and basically told to prove that you're sober.

With this DC bullshit, you're ASSUMED to be a criminal and asked to prove that you're not. And if, for any reason, they decide they want to search you or your vehicle, you're screwed there, too, since the attitude generally seems to be "if you have nothing to hide, why won't you consent?" Ummm... Because I don't have to, under the terms of the Constitution.

One more reason for me never to visit DC. Shame - I'd really love to see some of the monuments, buildings, and documents that made our country so great back in the day...

Mike

BB....BB....BB....BB....BB!

Welcome to the new america comrade!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe it's almost time for A WELL REGULATED MILITIA!!!!!!!!!!
What bullshit all in the name of public safety,homeland security, or whatever they want to come up with!!!!!!!
Fuck it let the animals kill each other!!!!!!! Natural selection.

They tried that a few years ago down here in Texas on IH 35 between San Antonio for a weekend they blocked all traffic and checked each vehicle with dogs and cheched insurance ID's etc. The net result was only a handfull of citations and a small amount of drugs and a hell of a lot of people mad as hell. The soon discontinued the practice after the uproar of people delayed for hours.

Washington D.C. is NOT one of the United States of America, it is a Federal District, and as such they think the Constitution does not apply there. I could'n make this up guys, that was one basis for their arguement that the 2nd Ammendment didn't apply to them.
Washington Metropolitan Police ROUTINELY stop stop people on the street (mostly in the'hoods) and confiscate whatever cash they have on them. The money is declaced "drug profits" and if you cannot afford a lawyer wich is normally the case (most times they wait untill homes cashes his paycheck at the liquor store, when he walks out drinking a forty they bust him and take his money) it becomes DC government property.

Relax, in a few weeks the Supreme Court will set this all straight.

The DC 'Police' are going after easy targets innocent citizens. They won't go after the real criminals who would shoot back at them in spite of the Nazi anti gun laws which criminals ignore anyway. To think that rights are trampled in the nation's capital with impunity is sickening. These 'liberal' totalitarians don't belong in the US but in some third world country.