Reacting with the hysteria that is now standard — and probably permanent — among police forces in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department recently closed down entire blocks of downtown to manage a few hundred protesters.
Ostensibly demonstrating against the policies of the World Bank, the group actually was little more than a hodge-podge of haranguers yipping about everything from global warming to meat consumption. They’re silly, but they haven’t proven dangerous; most of their altercations are with overbearing police.
So what justifies police responding as if the District had been invaded by hundreds of terrorists fresh from the training camp at SalmanPak? Surely Washington’s police force could manage a few hundred protesters without penalizing tens of thousands of innocent people by closing main thoroughfares and capriciously banning parking — creating head-banging traffic jams on the rest of the streets and hurting businesses no one can get near.
Just because a few protesters arrive in town, police make life a nightmare for everyone else. And they do so not because it’s necessary for security, but because it’s convenient for them.
Now, there’s something to protest.
Let us stipulate that police officers — particularly in big cities — have a very difficult job. That doesn’t entitle them to make life unnecessarily difficult for everyone else. The essence of a free society is that citizens can go about their business in peace.
To wit, consider this irony: Almost all of the demonstrators who were arrested earlier this week were taken into custody for … blocking traffic. If it’s considered criminal for civilians to create havoc on the city streets, then why should police be free to inflict the same needless nuisance?
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.
Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights is essentially a list of impediments to police. The Founding Fathers understood that a free society can exist only when there are strict checks on police powers. It is not supposed to be easy for cops to corral citizens as they do — and too few Americans object.
Instead of submissively behaving as if a policeman’s word is law, Americans should demand to know why their movements are being restricted. When a police officer capriciously demands to see identification, the proper response is “no.” That is not defiance toward authority; it is an obligatory defense of freedom.
When the World Bank protesters convened two years ago, the Metropolitan police were even more overzealous, arresting hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. The department subsequently has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars settling legal claims.
Supposedly, new standards were adopted to prevent future abuses, but, for the law-abiding, the abuse continues. Police may be treating protesters more fairly. Citizens still are getting a raw deal.
Columnist Melanie Scarborough’s column appears every Thursday in The Washington Examiner.
