Posted on 05/21/2015 7:18:46 PM PDT by kristinn
The chitlins were making Alex Dennis sick. Dennis, a 20-year-old with dreadlocks that graze his shoulders, found himself getting nauseous in his apartment while his uncle and aunt cooked soul food for Thanksgiving.
Dennis walked outside to get some air, but ended up right in the grasp of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Stepping outside an apartment for fresh air doesn’t draw police attention in, say, Georgetown. But Dennis doesn’t live there. Instead, he lives on Buena Vista Terrace SE, a grim stretch of low-rise apartments pushed up against the Maryland border. And on Buena Vista Terrace, just standing outside can get you in trouble.
Dennis was standing on a ramp to his apartment building around 8:30 p.m., looking for relief from the chitlins’ aroma, when a police officer approached and told him and another man that they were blocking the ramp. The officer, according to a police report, told Dennis to move.
The request was an odd one for Dennis. In his telling, no one was trying to come up the ramp. If someone had come by, he says, he would have moved. The police report doesn’t mention anyone who couldn’t get past him.
“How can you tell me to move from the place where I live at?” Dennis says.
When Dennis refused to move, police arrested him and put him into a van. As the cop took him away, Dennis asked him why he was being arrested.
“Blocking a passage,” the officer said, in Dennis’ telling. “You’re going with me.”
Dennis had run afoul of a District law that forbids “incommoding,” which means blocking a sidewalk. The law is meant to fight disorderly conduct, but some lawyers and the people arrested for the “crime” say it’s routinely used to harass people seen as undesirable: protesters, the homeless, black men.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtoncitypaper.com ...
The D.C. Chapter of Free Republic knows all about incommoding. The D.C. police invoked that law against us to shut down one of our more memorable protests against John Kerry in 2004.
On April 17 in Washington, in a humorous attempt to combat nationwide MoveOn.org bake sales in support of John Kerry, Kristinn Taylor of the D.C. chapter of Free Republic organized a different kind of bake sale. While MoveOn.org portrayed Kerry as a “man of the people,” Taylor’s “Viet Cong Vets for Kerry” sale informed the public about Kerry’s betrayal of Americans during the Vietnam War. The group gave away items including Jane Fonda nut cakes and Kerry waffles. But Taylor’s sale was short-lived since the small card table was situated outside of Kerry’s national campaign headquarters. Kerry’s campaign staff emerged, complained that the group was “blocking the sidewalk,” and called the police, who later arrived and asked the group to leave. Kerry’s staff, Taylor said, “seemed happy to see us shut down and move along.”
Passing an even worse law to correct a bad law sound like something the idiots in DC would be good at.
““How can you tell me to move from the place where I live at?” Dennis says. “
Kristinn, it’s the grammar police. That “at” got him busted.
Damned shame that folks can’t make a judgement call and just leave people be anymore.
Don’t want to get arrested today? Don’t break the law. Don’t like the law? Change the law. Can’t change the law? Vote out the legislators. Can’t vote because of criminal record? Don’t get arrested.
Yep, after the courts threw out vagrancy law due to police abuse of them, then apparently in DC also threw out disorderly conduct laws for the same reason, you might think the people who run the police departments would order their officer not to abuse the public in this way. I suspect this law will go the way of the others because apparently when you give many people a gun and a badge and they just can’t help themselves.
Cooking chitlins is certainly extenuating circumstances.
The cop should have given him a pass at the very least. I would have given him $10 to buy a ticket to a movie matinée.
“Passing an even worse law to correct a bad law sound like something the idiots in DC would be good at. “
...and, it will be called, “The Public Safety for Pedestrians Act”, which will increase the jail time and, naturally, the fines.
It’s almost like DC were a fiefdom run by petty tyrants.
Having been around DC in the 2010/2011 period, I can say this....they had a small problem in street people camping out on sidewalks with their ‘tent’/sleeping bag arrangement. On a typical Saturday in the areas where tourists might walk...you’d come across dozens of folks blocking travel. Most were friendly....I came across one gal who was completely nuts and yelling at anyone who came within twenty feet.
In general, there’s a major problem with homeless people in DC. I’d take a reasonable guess that a minimum of 10,000 such people live in the six by six mile area. Half are mentally ill and probably need to be in a facility of some type. The rest are simply people ran through some tough luck and can’t restart their lives, with some alcohol or drug abuse in their background. DC doesn’t want to take tough steps like Arlington did....so they let them just walk through the district.
Yeah..., when you go to jail for one of the innumerable felonies you commit over the course of a month you might not be so smug....
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842
ebonics got him busted
It’s a city not only run by leftist but by black leftist and has been for many, many decades.
How’s that working out for you?
“Cooking chitlins is certainly extenuating circumstances.”
Indeed so! Growing up, fried “wrinkle steak” was a steam-up the windows winter time tradition. Discovered many years later that some prefer them prepared in a slow cooker with sauce of choice. Nowadaze chitlins are so processed that cooking time is half the work of years past. Still, most important rule in preparing chitlins is cook’m at someone else’s house!
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