Cops demand ID for residents to enter own block in W Baltimore

Update Nov 22:The "crime scene" is no longer active. Turns out Detective Suiter was killed with his own gun, in a no-cameras area, one day before he was to testify before a grand jury against a squad of indicted cops.

Video clip-resident points out 17 cop cars at checkpoint

As of the 19th of November, Baltimore Police are holding the 500 block of Shroeder (at Edmondson & Schroeder) under armed occupation, with at least 9 police cars on site and residents of the block required to show ID proving an address on the block to enter. Residents without ID presumably can leave but cannot return to their own homes.

The excuse being trotted out by the Baltimore Pigs is that they are looking for the unknown person who shot down Detective Suiter and so far has gotten away with it. No leads, no information that anyone knows of, just police locking down an entire community. There is the likelihood that this is an Israeli-style "group punishment" operation intended to force people to snitch given that the usual offers of money have not worked.

The Baltimore Sun reported that the entire area near where the detective was shot down presumably by someone not impressed with the idea of spending the rest of his life in a cage has been a locked down "crime scene" since the shooting. Residents complained that this would have ended "in 15 minutes" if one of them had been shot but in this "special" case the community is held under occupation for days on end. This was reported on the 16th of November, now three days later posters on Twitter report that at least one block (500 block of Shroeder) is STILL under occupation.

Some years ago, MPD (DC Police) attempted to use a similar strategy of surrounding and locking down entire blocks in neighborhoods of color for generic crime control. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed a lawsuit and forced an end to the use of ID checkpoints for DC residents to approach their own homes. No doubt the use of Israeli-style checkpoints in West Baltimore will also be held unconstitutional, unless of course rule of law (predictable governmental behavior) has become extinct under Donald Trump's attempt at open fascism.

Needless to say, this conduct is unheard of in white neighborhoods, no matter what crimes are committed. Back in 2002, a sniper terrorized neighborhoods in places like Montgomery County, MD and elsewhere in the DC area. His first shootings were in Montgomery County and were an even bigger deal than the shooting of the Baltimore detective as multiple people had been murdered with zero leads other than a false report of a white van. While gas stations erected big tarps to provide concealment against sniper fire for customers filling their cars, there were no ID checkpoints to pass for residents to use the same roads the snipers used to get to and from their homes.

The sniper terror went on for weeks, but nobody with any serious reputation was calling for roadblocks and ID checkpoints in Aspen Hill where the first shootings took place. Finally the exhausted snipers were caught sleeping in their car, and the reign of terror ended. ID checkpoints would not have caught them even one day earlier as they would have been easily seen and avoided, they would only have created serious problems for everyone else. Snitch money would not have helped either, as presumably the murderers didn't boast about their crimes. Further terrorizing the community with police harassment and ID checkpoints also would not have produced information-nobody had any.