Monday - April 07, 2008

DC Cops back down on house search plan

D.C. police have scaled back plans to go door-to-door asking residents in high-crime neighborhoods whether officers can search their homes for guns as part of a new amnesty program aimed at getting weapons off the streets.

The Safe Homes program instead will be offered by appointment only at residents’ request, said Chief Cathy L. Lanier.

Lanier joined Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) last month in announcing the program and saying that police would begin work March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. In hindsight, officials said, more details should have been worked out before the announcement was made.

“I should have realized that the program needed to go out with a whole lot more information,” Lanier said. “I should have put it out with very clear facts.”

Lanier joined Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) last month in announcing the program and saying that police would begin work March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. In hindsight, officials said, more details should have been worked out before the announcement was made.

“I should have realized that the program needed to go out with a whole lot more information,” Lanier said. “I should have put it out with very clear facts.”

“The way it was announced by the mayor, so little had been worked out, and people were free to imagine the most intimidating sort of interaction with police, which nobody wants,” Mendelson said.

A Safe Homes program similar to the District’s was announced in Boston last week after several months of citizen resistance and delays. That department has yet to get a call to search a home.

“We’re still waiting for the phone calls to come in,” said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston police.

Um, maybe, maybe not. More likely not. This is still a police program that lets the cops play Daddy (en loco parentis) by request ... probably in a lot of homes that have no daddy ... and where the kids are totally out of control. Because good, responsible parents have no need of this program whatsoever. Am I right? If you’re at the point where you think your kid is stashing guns and drugs in his room, and you yourself feel so intimidated by your own child that you have to call in the cops to do something about it, then you’re a total failure as a parent and your kid is a mess. Is that the right way to look at this? Or is it that the Nanny State has become so overbearing that parents feel the need to call in the government to enforce discipline for them? If so, that’s an awfully sad state of affairs.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/07/2008 at 08:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Nanny State • Stoopid-People •  
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