Posted on 07/30/2012 2:25:45 PM PDT by matt04
he American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is planning on fighting Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch on his proposal to initiate an anti-violence curfew for citizens under 18 years old.
Finch signed an ordinance Monday afternoon with the hopes that it will curb a recent rise of gun violence in the city.
Three people were shot and killed in the state's largest city in less than a week.
One of those deaths was a 15-year-old girl who was sitting on her porch after returning from a Sweet 16 party when she was shot and killed.
The Bridgeport City Council voted in favor of the curfew and almost every adult Channel 3 Eyewitness News spoke with in Bridgeport seemed to agree with the decision.
But the ACLU strongly disagrees.
An ACLU spokesperson released a statement Monday and said, "The Bridgeport curfew looks like the easy way out politically, but it's a huge mistake. It criminalizes innocent behavior and fails to address the real problem of violent crime."
The spokesperson said officials in Bridgeport rejected evidence that curfews are actually ineffective against fighting crime. The statement said officials "have refused to engage in a dialogue about the serious constitutional questions involved and have ignored our repeated requests to see documentation from the police department that purportedly justifies this measure."
The curfew will ban residents under 18 years old from the streets of Bridgeport from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. without a parent or guardian Sunday through Thursday, and midnight until 6 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Parents of teenagers who are caught after curfew will be find anywhere from $25 to $90.
According to the ACLU, a similar curfew was successfully challenged in Vernon, and the ACLU is urging parents or young people whose rights are violated under Bridgeport's curfew to contact them.
/s
I’m sure they would have no problem calling 911 and waiting several minutes as they are getting robbed and beaten to a pulp for the cops to show up. After all guns would make it worse.
I’m too lazy to click the link, but are they saying a curfew would have saved this gal’s life? Wouldn’t being on your own porch constitute compliance with a curfew? Aren’t you “at home” when you are sitting on your own porch? Or do you have to actually be “inside”?
I don’t know about Bridgeport, but there’s plenty of people in NYC and other cities who have been shot while inside their homes as bullets came through the outside walls.
I’m not opposed to such curfews, they need to have allowances for teenagers that have jobs, etc. But I’m just wondering what point they are trying to make here.
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