Checkpointed!
I was making my way to the Whole Foods on P Street last night when a row of cops waved me into a real live checkpoint. (They should really stop people after they leave Whole Foods.) A nice officer held the brake on my scooter as I fished through my purse for my registration. I asked him what was up. He said he had no idea. He called the stops a "traffic checkpoint" and said police were just checking that people had their licenses and registrations. I asked if this was supposed to make the earlier checkpoints legal and he grinned and said he'd heard something like that. Then he sent me on my way. It's interesting that the MPD is doing general checkpoints now, after Cathy Lanier stood up at a recent hearing and claimed the Trinidad operation was inspired by a specific criminal threat, she just couldn't tell us the details.
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10:17 am
MPD has been doing fixed traffic stops,ID Checks, sobriety checks for years. They say they catch a lot of lawbreakers this way. The thing about Trinidad is that they were turning people away from the area if they didnt live there.
12:01 pm
WTF reason can they have for checking your REGISTRATION? It's right there on the sticker attached to the FRONT windshield? These are DC cops, they should know where to look. They shouldn't make you dig through the glove compartment.
Now, if they were searching you to make sure you had your own hemp grocery bags, that'd be perfectly justifiable.