Um....Constitution? (UPDATE)

A west side police commander - the HUD Scammer - has decided to use the COVID-19 outbreak to shut down public access to a public street, all in the name of shutting down a dope spot:

• Some Chicago police officers Tuesday were assigned to check the identification of anyone who wanted to enter four historically violent West Side blocks in an effort to tamp down gang gatherings.
  
  Under the order, issued by Harrison District Cmdr. Darrell Spencer, only people who live on those blocks would be able to enter them.
  
  Several police officers said they were hesitant to follow those orders out of concern that the directive was not constitutional. “I don’t want to be in a courtroom six months from now because someone with a video camera decided to sue all of us,” one officer said. “Essentially, we are showing a police presence but that’s it,” said another.

You know it's a big deal when the Sun Times goes out and names the offending commander front and center.

What the Sun Times isn't telling you is that the 3800 Block of W. Gladys mentioned in the article? That's the block that multiple-"merit" HUD-sucker owns a building on - the very building that caught the attention of the federal authorities years ago (see the top link). He is using his office to designate the block where he owns property as a "hot-spot" in order to direct tact teams, Homan Square assets and other mission cars to disperse the dope boys.

Now, we're all for disrupting the dope trade and jailing dealers, but when you have a vested interest in a certain property and you happen to be in a position to direct extra resources to that area, one might be suspected of trying to use undue influence to increase a property value. That's illegal on one hand and overly unethical on the other. And using the police as some sort of Soviet-style KGB (Where are your papers Comrade?) would seem to be unconstitutional at best, criminal at worst.

Look who woke up!

• Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the order “raises constitutional concerns about limiting people’s movement and requiring people to ‘show papers’ to travel within Chicago.”
  
  “If the CPD is addressing criminal behavior, there are other ways to address those concerns without asking every person [to] show an identification card to enter their own block,” Yohnka added. “Our current public health crisis should not be used as cover for heavy-handed policing targeting communities of color.”

Maybe instead of leaving Special Ed's dumber "merit" picks in place to expose Chicago taxpayers to countless millions in Civil Rights violations, Lori ought to remove them and stick them somewhere they can't do too much damage to a city that is running dry of money.

UPDATE: Rescinded

• As a result of the Sun-Times story, the Chicago Police Department ended this practice on Wednesday. If you’re a law-abiding person who lives on, say, the 3900 block of West Van Buren Street, you’re free once again to run out to the grocery store without having to show your ID to a cop, as if you lived in a totalitarian state.

Silly Constitution.