Georgetown Halloween Road Closures & Parking Restrictions

The police are very cooperative when it means their detail for the night will be sitting on the side of their cruisers watching women in slutty outfits walk by.

Well this is definitely a given, but specifically I'm referring to the Trinidad checkpoint controversy. I quote commenter Stanton Park from when the decision was handed down:

"Civil rights are not a race or class issue. What if the Police Department decided to cut off Georgetown, demanding to see the papers of anyone attempting to enter the neighborhood, and asking what business they have there? Even if they justified it as a crime control measure, it would be just as unconstitutional."

Admittedly, I didn't spend much time studying the decision of the higher court in that case, and I could probably be easily convinced on the lack of efficacy of such checkpoints and in favor of the court's decision.

However, I give the police dept their due in trying to do something in the face of such mayhem. Stop-gaps aren't always pretty and they need to be kept severely in check, but it seemed to me like the Trinidad checkpoints were a desperate attempt at a stop-gap until something better came along or people calmed down enough to be reasoned/dealt with.

So how do these two differ specifically (esp. in light of Stanton Park's prophetic comment)? Is it just simply because this is benign/non-controversial and self-imposed? Why should Georgetown, separate and above everyone else, get to determine which streets I use this weekend? The adults didn't shut down my .5 sq mile town during Halloween when I was growing up.

I'm sure I simply have things mixed up and there's a perfectly good reason, but it seems so oddly similar that I have to ask at least.

I think, and speak with no actual knowledge here, that the Georgetown closures are for cars, where Trinidad were for people. Even if you were walking in Trinidad, you had to justify yourself, which poses some fairly clear Constitutional questions. Tomorrow, if you're walking, you don't have to prove residency or state your business. You just can't bring a car, which I'm fairly certain is not protected by any Amendment.

And, while I'm sure it's not constitutional, MPD should ask "what is wrong with you?" of anyone that does attempt to drive anywhere near Georgetown on Halloween night.

Ah see, I was conflating. My bad. I hate busy Fridays, I can't devote enough attention to ranting coherently on DCist...

Actually, I reckon that the analysis is different. Trinidad was a 4th Amendment challenge. The 4th A prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The issue in Trinidad was whether warrantless stops of all vehicles at a checkpoint was an unreasonable search and/or seizure.

The opinion is, frankly, wishy-washy, but that's largely because of the existing Supreme Court precedent. The court said that absent an individualized suspicion of wrongdoing, warrantless checkpoints for the primary purpose of detecting evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing are unreasonable seizures, and thus prohibited by the 4th Amendment. There are certain limited exceptions, such as sobriety checkpoints and checkpoints for border protection. Why those situations are distinguishable remains a bit of a mystery to me.

Here, DC would argue that these aren't checkpoints designed to detect evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Instead, they're temporary traffic control measures designed to regulate vehicle activity during a period of unusually high pedestrian activity. It's similar to limiting traffic access to certain streets during a protest or a marathon in order to protect pedestrians. I'd wager that's a decent argument.

Yep, it's amateur night.