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Fenty and Company Escalate the Game in DC
With the Supreme Court ready to hear oral arguments on the Second Amendment in the Heller case next Tuesday, DC Mayor Adrien Fenty and his henchman Police Chief Cathy Lanier have announced an assault on the Fourth Amendment with a so-called "consensual search" of city households.
As reported in the Washington Post, [comments added]
...the Safe Homes Initiative, [is] aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence* and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said.
*i.e., low-income black and Latino neighborhoods --ed.
Of course, the police chief says it will be a no-fault/no-foul operation, aimed at "getting guns and drugs off the streets."
"If we come across illegal contraband*, we will confiscate it," Lanier said. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."
*Anyone with the slightest clue what might constitute legal contraband is urged to send me the details, a.s.a.p.
Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation*. The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week in a case challenging the constitutionality of the D.C. law.
*Eureka! Might this be a clue that those strict gun control laws are not enforceable and do not work?
Counting on the reader's being so brain-dead as to have forgotten what was written a mere two paragraphs earlier, Post reporter Allison Klein adds,
Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges.
So, according to Lanier, "amnesty means amnesty," except when it doesn't. Apparently the Post has conditioned its reporters not to ask embarrassing follow-up questions.
Meanwhile, over at the Washington Times (you know: that mouthpiece of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy) reporter David Lipscomb attended the same press conference, and came away with a slightly different version of the story. As Lipscomb reports it, the police department spokesperson appears not to have been Chief Lanier, but "police spokeswoman Traci Hughes." Hughes, not Lanier, is quoted directly in the Times piece. You don't suppose the police department held two parallel press conferences, or sent out two different sets of press releases, do you? Me either.
Lipscomb adds a fact omitted in the Post story, which is that the program will begin March 24 to coincide with D.C. Public Schools' spring break and will run indefinitely...
If Lanier really meant "amnesty means amnesty," why wait until children--who are apparently the prime targets here--are home from school, especially if the program is meant to help parents/guardians who are actually afraid of the children in their homes (as the police spokesperson has asserted)?
I have not found any hard data, but a quick check on the web suggests that NATIONALLY around 14 percent of the children between the ages of 5 and 12 are so-called "latchkey kids," home alone after school. Nothing I could easily find estimates the percentage of children under 18 who are at home alone after school, and presumbly will also be home alone during spring break.
Presumably, a person under the age of 18 cannot legally give consent to a search, and the potential pandemonium caused by police officers stomping into houses where no adults are home should not be underestimated.
Under the best of circumstances--that the door is answered by a person over the age of majority--what's likely to be the police response if the request to search the place is denied, especially if the refusal is delivered with hostility and profanity? Can we expect that the police will simply apologize for the intrusion and go on to the next house? Or will this be considered a motivation to seek a formal (i.e., legal) search warrant? Or, will the cop on the doorstep simply take two steps back and unholster his Taser, figuring that a convienient cover-your-ass lie can be dreamed up later?
Apparently the only person not 100 per cent on board with this program is the head of the police union, as Lipscomb reports:
Officer Kristopher Baumann, head of the union that represents the city's police, said the group "supports any well thought out plan to reduce violence*."
However, he hopes the department has considered potential problems with advertising amnesty while checking for guns connection to crimes.
*But evidently with no regard to whether or not such a plan is Constitutional. Just as a little refresher, that dusty, outmoded old document (or "living" document, depending which flavor of liberalism you espouse) says the following:
ARTICLE IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmations, and particularly describing the place to be searched, andd the persons or things to be seized.
Alan Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation quickly responded to Fenty's announcement thus:
Calling this project the ‘Safe Homes Initiative’ is an insult to our intelligence... If District residents allow this to happen, no home will be safe from warrantless fishing expeditions by police, because that’s exactly what this thinly-disguised program is really all about. We think Congress should step in immediately and stop this from happening.
The entire Gottlieb commentary comprises only a few paragraphs, and is well worth reading. Find it here.