Posted on 09/07/2001 5:01:29 PM PDT by pa_dweller
Last year's Fat Tuesday riot on South Street showed the area's ruffians have learned you can get drunk, break windows and trash property in Philadelphia as long as you don't bring an ID. Dozens of rioters nabbed on summary charges in last February's melee apparently walked free after giving phony names to police.
State Rep. Alan Butkovitz, D-Philadelphia, has a solution: Permit cops to hold summary offenders until their identification is confirmed. But that idea was challenged in a legislative hearing yesterday as an attack on civil liberties.
"I begin to wonder whether we really did defeat our totalitarian enemies in the 20th century," Larry Frankel, director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, told a state House subcommittee in City Hall. "Essentially, this legislation is calling on all of us to carry identification papers."
Butkovitz's bill would permit police to detain anyone suspected of a serious summary offense, such as public drunkenness or disorderly conduct until the police get "reasonable verification or confirmation of the offender's identity."
The provision would not apply to traffic offenses.
The bill was spurred by Daily News revelations of revelers who gave phony names, and of the case of Jaclyn Reed, who found she'd been convicted of public drinking on Fat Tuesday even though she'd been at work at the time. It turned out someone who was arrested on South Street had given police Reed's name instead of her own.
District Attorney Lynne Abraham testified in favor of the bill yesterday, accusing its detractors of claiming a "constitutional right to be anonymous."
"No one has an inherent legal right to commit a crime and then to lie about or conceal their identity," Abraham said.
The ACLU's Frankel said police should charge people who commit serious offenses of public disorder, such as smashing windows or assault, with arrestable crimes, instead of relying on blanket summary offenses like public drinking.
Imposing a potentially lengthy stay in a police station for minor infractions doesn't make sense, he said.
"At some point you have to decide this is a summary offense," Frankel said. "If it's a minor offense, how much resources are we going to expend, and how much freedom are we going to sacrifice on crimes we've already decided are the least serious on the books?"
Police Lt. Harry Giordano said that a certain number of summary offenders were wanted on more serious crimes, and the bill would make it easier to apprehend them.
He cited the recent case of a man who was released on a summary offense in Harrisburg after giving a phony name and who then shot a police officer in nearby Cumberland County.
Butkovitz said that if lawmakers did not give the police the tools they need, no one should be surprised when laws aren't enforced.
"I don't think there's any serious Big Brother problem in this," Butkovitz said. "We might as well go one way or the other. Either you don't have these laws, or if you do, you have a reasonable way of enforcing them."
Butkovitz said he expected passage in the state House by the end of the year, and hopes for Senate action next spring. *
When was the last time a cop was present at the scene of a rape, mugging, home invasion etc...?
Self defense is the only option as it is now anyway.
I would be nice if we did not not need LEO's or that everyone could defend themselves.
Same thing I would do now, collect insurence! Seriously, ask any police officer you know to answer this question for you honestly, "if someone breaks into my home in my absence, and steals my property, what are my chances of ever seeing any of that stuff again?"
What do you think his answer will be?
Nope, know me and know my spelling problems,proof reading and other possible faults of posting real time.
It was just your use of words.
Like abolishing the unconstitutional welfare system. No handouts. No school grants. No affirmative action. Libertarians figured it out long ago.
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