Say Anything Blog

Melanie Scarborough, writing about the DC Police Department’s decision to shut down several blocks of Washington DC for an anti-globalism protest:

Most Americans seem to have forgotten that, in a free society, police have the authority only to enforce laws; they have no authority to make them.

Before a citizen can be charged with a crime, an officer has to cite a violation of law. Yet in announcing the road closures accompanying the World Bank protests, the police department said, “Only pedestrians with business in the area and proper identification will be permitted access.”

Which statute requires law-abiding citizens to produce ID to walk down a sidewalk? What law says that citizens must explain to police where they are going and why?

A call to the police departments general counsel asking that question was not returned. Unfortunately, there likely is some badly written statute that the Metropolitan police can contort into affording them sweeping powers — similar to the Secret Service’s ability to operate virtually unchecked by claiming it is protecting someone or something.

Such laws are more dangerous than any group of protesters.

It does often seem, from a citizen’s perspective, as though the power and arrogance of many law enforcement officers has increased.  I actually had my own run-in with DC police officer on Capitol Hill earlier this month.  A couple of friends and I, who were in town for Americans for Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit, had decided to take a trip to the Capitol to spend the morning walking around and enjoying the sites before we had to fly out.  We’d taken the Metro from our hotel to Capitol Hill and then had been traversing the area around the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the Senate/House office buildings for a couple of hours.  When we were done sight-seeing, we were trying to find our way back to a Metro station to leave but weren’t sure where the nearest one was.

One of my companions spied a police officer walking away from us and tried to get his attention.  He wasn’t hearing us, so my companion issued a short whistle to get him to look our way.  When the officer heard us he turned around and was angry.  He told us not to whistle at him (perhaps understandable) and further told that if we were going to address him we would be using “Sir” and “No sir.”

Now I, personally, don’t mind calling a cop “sir.”  I typically do that out of habit anyway, as a sign of respect.  But for an officer to brashly demand that I do so (with an implied “or else” to boot) it strikes me as a terribly arrogant abuse of power.

We were tourists.  We wanted directions.  And while a whistle to get this officer’s attention (he wasn’t doing anything but standing/walking at the time) may not have been advisable, it certainly didn’t warrant the response we got.  But it did make us all a little nervous.  How easy would it be for this officer to write us a citation, or even haul us in, on some obscure and vaguely written law against loitering or public disruption?

This may seem like a minor issue, but it’s really not.  The more we ignore this sort of creeping police state in America the more danger we’re in.