D.C. police have quietly but regularly shut down sidewalks and streets in front of a Southeast high school, a move that some critics say smacks of the city’s failed barricades program.
Every school day since August, officers have shut down the area near Ballou Senior High School and swept everyone off the streets and sidewalks, an internal department e-mail shows and a police source said.
“Permit no foot traffic walk towards the school in all directions,” police Inspector Nathan Sims wrote to commanders in August.
“No student or pedestrian shall be permitted to hang around the school while the school safe passage is being conducted” from 3 until 3:30 p.m. every day, Sims’ e-mail states. “This initiative shall take place until the end of the school year.”
Neither Sims nor Chief Cathy Lanier responded to requests for comment. Ballou has long been plagued by violence, including an on-campus double shooting in 2004 that killed a 17-year-old boy.
In 2008, Lanier threw up barricades in the violence-stricken Trinidad neighborhood. The effort was later struck down by a federal court, which ruled that it violated citizens’ constitutional rights.
The city council is weighing legislation that would give police the authority to prevent loitering near schools during class hours, but a vote has yet to be taken on the measure.
Rank-and-file police officers are pushing back against their leaders, saying the Ballou effort is unconstitutional.
“What this shows is the department simply has no learning curve on this stuff,” police union leader Kris Baumann told the Washington Examiner. “The issue is, we need to protect citizens under the laws and the Constitution so that when we catch a bad guy, they get put away.”
D.C. homicides fell to their lowest level in decades last year, but other violent crimes are on the rise.
Councilman Phil Mendelson, D-at large, chairs the public safety committee. He said he has no objection to “temporary” school safety zones, as long as “there’s a credible threat of violence.”
But the months-long shutdown has him puzzled.
“I don’t know why they’re doing it,” Mendelson said. “I can only speculate.”
