A District Two-Fer

ONE:
In my continued mocking of my police chief's latest decision, the Metropolitan Police Department declares this weekend's neighborhood blockade a rounding success. But my favorite quote from the whole article is this:

"As cars came up, they made lefts and rights and went the other way," neighborhood activist Wilhelmina Lawson said. "I support them, and I understand what they're trying to do, but I think they're missing it by not sitting down and talking to the residents. We can help them much better if they talk to us."

But that's not all. My second favorite comes just paragraphs later:

Police in Baltimore, where there has been a 36 percent decrease in homicides and shootings this year, said they attribute that to targeting violent criminals and improving relationships with members of the community.

"You lock up the baddest of the bad in part by working with people in the neighborhood," Baltimore police spokesman Sterling Clifford said. "You look to people in the neighborhood to tell you who they are and where they are."

If B'more gets it, why can't we?

TWO:
How much did Harriette Walters syphon away before getting caught? $50 million? Not even close. Try closer to $185 million!

Following Harriette Walters's input, officials left her small unit out of the new software system, making it easier for her to escape detection as she allegedly produced fake checks that prosecutors say amounted to $50 million.

Directors in the scandal-plagued tax department now want to scrap the $135 million system rather than try to upgrade it to make it more secure. The chief financial officer's technology manager says the system, installed between 2000 and 2004, is too outdated and clumsy to be worth fixing.

This has been a rough couple of years for my poor city.

The Continuing Saga Of Bringing Kurt Russell Films To Life

As was mentioned yesterday, the city police will quarantine off the Trinidad neighborhood to discourage violent crimes. Some people are happy to roll over and let the police do what they will, even if that means hassling innocent people. (Which, I always thought, we all were until proven guilty. But what do I know.)

Others are not quite as pliable and are vocalizing their concerns with city officials and the police chief. Instead of making a logic-based argument, perhaps ... say ... by citing statistics of how violent crime rated dropped so dramatically in these other cities where this measure has been implemented, Chief Lanier instead turned to those tried-and-true District stand-by retorts ... whining and snark.

"Its funny," Lanier told reporters, "We put check points in place all the time for major events around federal buildings and nobody cares. Now that we want to do it to stop shootings and violence in our neighborhoods, it's as if it's something that's unreasonable. We've been doing it for years around federal facilities in the name of terrorism. If what's going on in our neighborhood doesn't classify as something that justifies this, I don't know what does."

It is funny, Chief, because nothing draws people to your point of view quite like berating and humiliating them. You might as well have used the the infamous "flag argument" ... it would have been just as effective.

The city will move ahead with this approach. And it will be done half-assed because they will meet resistance from the people of the city. And nothing will improve.

Sometimes, I hate D.C., too.

Pay-PAHS?! Vee Don't Need No Steen-keeng Pay-PAHS!

Several blog sites have picked up on this The Examiner story.

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 doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

(The Washington Post has a write-up on this story as well.)

If you think this is some belated April Fool's joke, it's not. The Office of Mayor Adrian Fenty released this press release today to address this so-called "public safety initiative".

The other bloggers have effectively covered the "slippery slope to a police state" angle of this story, so I'll let that be. I'm more concerned about precedent already set - how this plan will fail. See, the mayor, the police chief, and the interim attorney general have not done their due diligence. If they had, they would already know that once you've locked down an area from the rest of civilization, you can't unlock it. It becomes a haven for the very people you're trying to keep out. Then, before you know it, you'll have to go back into this boiling cauldron of evil to save the President, to retrieve the remote control for a super space weapon, or to find a cure for a devastating disease. And we just don't have people lying around in this city competent enough to pull off such stunts.

So please, people running this city, think of the President and shelf this idea.

An Update from the Chief

Some of you may have heard about the fracas over Chief Cathy Lanier's decision to decentralize the District's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit that sort of dusted up earlier in the month. Well, a friend of mine forwarded to me the following e-mail which should shed a bit more light onto this story.

The following is a clarification on the role of the GLLU and its future from Chief Lanier:


Dear GLBT Community:

In the past few weeks, there has been a great deal of confusion regarding my vision for the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit. I apologize to the GLBT community for the miscommunication regarding my plan to expand the reach of the GLLU. As Chief of Police, I take full responsibility for the Department failing the GLBT community by not getting the message out in the right way and with the right input from all of you, and for that I apologize.

It has never been my intention to disband the award-winning unit, and in fact I have set a goal for my Department to train every Metropolitan Police Officer to respond to calls from the GLBT community and to encourage more officers to join GLLU.

The GLUU is critical to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and to the GLBT community. The services provided by the dedicated officers who make up the unit are invaluable, and I am fully committed to ensuring the GLUU continues to provide the same services to every GLBT resident who needs them. The reach of GLUU must extend into every neighborhood and into every ward because the GLBT community contributes to our diverse population of residents — and those residents are not limited to only one geographic area of the District.

Over the next few weeks, Sergeant Brett Parson, along with Lieutenant Alberto Jova, will schedule group meetings in all seven districts to solicit your input about the GLUU and how it can be improved.

For those who are unable to attend the meetings, the MPD has created an e-mail address enabling members of the community to provide suggestions and/or concerns regarding the GLUU. The address is mpdc.liaisonunits@dc.gov.

The information gleaned from these meetings will be incorporated into a final plan for enhancements to the GLLU. A representative from each of the meetings will be asked to meet with the Chief so that she may inform them of the\ plan for each of the units. Rest assured that I am committed to hearing the views of the GLBT community before finalizing any plans to enhance the GLLU. With your input, I believe that we can come up with a plan that will not only broaden the reach of the GLLU, but improve the services this unique unit provides.

Cathy L. Lanier
Chief of Police
Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department