Post by Steve Gardner on Mar 16, 2008 22:48:09 GMT
...search their homes for guns, drugs
You know how sometimes you read an article and end up just shaking your head in disbelief? Well that was me after reading this.
Source: USA Today
You know how sometimes you read an article and end up just shaking your head in disbelief? Well that was me after reading this.
Source: USA Today
Knock knock. Who's there? It's the police. We want you to let us search your residence. In return for signing a consent form, we'll give you amnesty for any guns or drugs that we find among your personal belongings.
The Washington Post says conversations like the fictional one that you just read will begin taking place this month as city police begin a new effort to get illegal guns and drugs off the streets of the nation's capital.
"If we come across illegal contraband, we will confiscate it," police Chief Kathy Lanier tells the paper. "But amnesty means amnesty. We're trying to get guns and drugs off the street."
Later this month, The Examiner says officers assigned to the poorest part of the city will start going "door-to-door asking residents for permission to search their homes." (If they're successful, the reports say police will extend the program to other parts of the District.)
Lanier says she expects parents who suspect their children of being involved with guns or drugs will consent to a search of their residence. But some people say they're skeptical about the initiative.
"The idea that this is going to be a peaceful, friendly invitation to enter the home may not work," Councilman Phil Mendelson, a Democrat, tells The Washington Times.
Ronald Hampton, a former police officer who now runs the National Black Police Association, tells the Post that he wouldn't let them search his house. "They haven't earned that level of access or respect from the community," Hampton says. "I just can't believe they're trying to do that. I've never heard of anything like that in my life."
