Walking while black
Adrienne Carmichael didn't understand how little it could take for her 17-year-old son to land in jail on a disorderly conduct charge.
"I thought [disorderly conduct] was if you got out of control with an officer," she says.
But a broadly worded category of the crime – known as "DC-6" – has emerged as a heated controversy in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, because it appears to allow police to arrest people simply for hanging out. Residents claim the charge amounts to an excuse for harassment.
DC-6 is the most frequent non-traffic offense cited by Atlanta police. As of Dec. 18, 7,551 DC-6 arrests -- about 22 a day -- were made in 2006, outpacing criminal trespass at 5,407 and drinking in public at 4,621.
Some City Council members and city officials weren't even familiar with the ordinance until it came to their attention at public meetings organized in the wake of the Nov. 21 home-invasion killing by police of an 88-year-old woman. At the most recent Jan. 6 public meeting organized by state Sen. Vincent Fort, residents from Vine City, the West End and other neighborhoods demanded to know why they and their neighbors have been "DC-6'ed" so often.
"To me, it's in direct contradiction to the Constitution," says Councilman Ivory Lee Young, whose district includes the Vine City street where Carmichael's son was arrested. "It sounds like lazy police work."
Carmichael told her son Robin's story at the Jan. 6 meeting. She says he was walking to his great-grandmother's house in September. A man who sat on the porch of an abandoned house asked Robin for a light. He stopped and lit the man's cigarette as a police officer pulled up, she says.
The officer asked Robin where he kept his drugs. When Robin told him he didn't have any, the officer searched him. Carmichael says the officer found nothing and then arrested her son for disorderly conduct in a known drug area.
"It seems to me police officers have made their own definitions of these charges," Carmichael says.
When Carmichael took her son to court, she says the citation couldn't be found and that his name wasn't on the docket. (Atlanta police couldn't find an incident report that correlated to the ticket number, either.) But she worries that a warrant could be issued for his arrest or that the ticket will pop up months later.
"The police are being paid to protect the citizens," Carmichael says. "Not to harass them."
According to the DC-6 ordinance: "It shall be unlawful for any person [to] ... be in or about any place where gaming or the illegal sale or possession of alcoholic beverages or narcotics or dangerous drugs is practiced, allowed or tolerated[.]"
What that means, essentially, is that a person can be arrested simply for being in what police designate as a "known drug area" -- even if he or she just walks down the street or chats with a neighbor. That's problematic, says American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Gerry Weber, because the law is so ambiguous that it invites discriminatory enforcement and therefore may be unconstitutional.
"It's one of those catch-all laws that police use when they can't think of any other charge," Weber says. "It's a street-clearing device."
Weber says the ACLU is seeking the right case for a legal challenge.
A police employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says there's no official list within the city that would designate a location as a hot spot for illegal activity. Instead, the employee says, identifying known drug areas is "all up to the officer's discretion."
There are signs that the topic has become a sensitive one for city officials. Atlanta Police refused to comment on DC-6. And another department employee, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, says police Chief Richard Pennington scolded zone majors at a recent staff meeting for citing DC-6 too often. The scolding came after one of the meetings in which residents complained, and the same day that CL requested DC-6 records.
COMMENTS
RE: Walking while black
Posted by Rycke Brown on 01.18.07 @ 03:32 PM
Police use laws like DC-6, concealed weapons laws, and driving without tags or insurance to oppress the poor and ignorant. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any, as far as they're concerned. This particular law can be used to oppress anyone anywhere, as drugs are used and sold everywhere, not just in poor neighborhoods. It can only be used against the ignorant poor, however, because people who aren't ignorant can easily beat the charge and might even void the law. And people who aren't poor can hire lawyers who would do it even faster. Fuento said that no one who is DC-6'd can afford to mount the legal challenge. Not so. You could've challenged it yourself, Fuento, acting as your own lawyer, speaking for yourself. It is not that difficult for anyone with a decent command of written English to go to the law library to read up on the law and state and US constitutions, and file a lawsuit or appeal, with the help of legal aid even, because you can get help for civil suits. I, a poor gardener with no legal training but personal experience, am at this moment involved in two appeals in one conviction for felony pot possession. The first appeal states that laws controlling substances violate our "free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions" and "interfere with the rights of conscience" and additionally violate the nature and purpose of free government. (Oregon Constitution, Article 1, sections 1 and 3) The second appeal is about a hammer the DA hit me with at sentencing, asking the court to suspend my driving "privileges" for 6 months, without actually coming out and saying so. ORS 809.265(1)(a) has no due process, seems widely applicable but is not in fact, and is apparently rarely used for that reason. The first appeal has little chance, but the second has a good chance, as judges abhor lack of process. My license was suspended for 10 weeks before the suspension was voided. It wouldn't have been suspended at all but for that lack of due process. I am going to take away his little hammer and break it. Quite likely, any citation under this statute that is taken to court is dropped for lack of merit, or otherwise lost, like the citation in the story. Otherwise, someone might actually appeal the judgment, and the law would be voided. Guilty pleas can't be appealled. As it is, the ACLU might be having trouble finding a case to take to court because the people who are generally cited are so afraid of the police and courts that they're afraid to challenge the law in court, or even make them prove the charge in court. They think that the cops will harass them unmercifully, and I have heard stories of people harassed for suing the police in places like LA. But challenging a law is a different matter from suing police for brutality or false arrest. They take it far less personally. And one does not get a longer sentence or larger fine for standing on one's rights and going to trial, whether on a ticket or a felony. Judges have to be able to justify their judgments, and anyone who takes a case to court is likely to make them do so. As a relatively poor person, I find it safer to be a known activist and to advertise that I know my rights with radical bumper stickers. I drove for 4 years with expired tags, suspended license, no insurance, and five radical libertarian bumper stickers and didn't get stopped and ticketed once. If you're going to run among wolves, you've got to let them know you're not one of the sheep. Live Free and Prosper, Rycke Grants Pass, Oregon
RE: Walking while black
Posted by greg on 01.17.07 @ 07:17 AM
I just read the comment right above my last one, you know, the guy ranting about liberals. If you are writing a book I hope you are researching what a "liberal" actually is. Not all conservative worship rich people. What a broadstroke! You should have used the terms "leftwing" and "right wing", perhaps even not came out promoting conservativism so grandly. Man, we've heard all that before.
RE: Walking while black
Posted by greg on 01.17.07 @ 07:08 AM
Im a white guy and I got hassled by a big black cop coming home from work one night. The guy was INCREDIBLY rude, treating me like some little piece of scum. I've found even black cops can be jerks. Five frickin cops standing around hassling whoever they want, while I was coming home from work. They are public servants. They're supposed to work for US.