Guten tag! I am officially rendered speechless by this. From Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office:

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative has been developed to help increase security for those who live in high-crime areas around the city and to help residents reclaim their communities. The program will authorize the Metropolitan Police Department to set up public safety checks to help safeguard community members and create safer neighborhoods in the District by increasing police presence aimed at deterring crime.

The safety zones will be established only upon request by a District Commander where there is evidence to support the existence of neighborhood violent crime, such as intelligence, violent crime data, police reports and feedback and concerns from the affected community.

Potential Neighborhood Safety Zones must be approved by the Chief of Police, and will be in effect for a maximum of 10 days. Public safety checks will be established along the main thoroughfares of the established neighborhoods. Anyone driving into a designated area may be asked to show valid identification with a home address in that neighborhood, or to provide an explanation for entering the NSZ, such as attending church, a doctor’s appointment or visiting friends or relatives. Pedestrians will not be subject to the public safety checks.

“The Neighborhood Safety Zones is just another tool MPD will employ to stop crime before it happens. The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative will help residents terrorized by violent crime to take back their neighborhoods,” said Chief Lanier.

Initiatives such as the Neighborhood Safety Zones have been accepted by federal courts as a legitimate law enforcement practice in keeping with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The constitutionality of the NSZ initiative has been reviewed by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

The NSZ will be launched next week in the Trinidad area. [source]

Great! Yay Police State! SEAL OFF THE POOR NIGGERS! What’s next? Arm bands? Papers? Schwartzwitz?

I’m really not sure what scares me more: the off-chance that politicians actually think this might work; or worse, they know it won’t but they’ll implement it anyway for fuck’s sake?

Let’s look at the stats for Ward 5, for starters (2000 stats):

  • 86% black
  • 20% below the poverty line
  • 15% unemployment
  • 30% of adults, no HS diploma
  • 30% of all children under povery line
  • 13% teen pregnancy
  • insert additional bleakness here

So … after all these indications of several layers of socio-economic travesties, the best idea is … *drum roll* … seal them off, and hopefully this initiative will help the residents “take back their neighborhoods!” Really? And this, my friends, is yet another chapter in the Idiot Continuum.

Hm … NSZ … has a nice, subtle, familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?

Yeah, I’m mad. And scared.

Oh yeah … June is apparently Black Music Month, according to our good friend on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I don’t know if my nerves can handle another rant, so I’ll save this for another time. Shit, three’s still 24 days left in the month.