Police Brutality at Little Earth Housing Projects

[mizzy]

The City Pages, a minneapolis based alternative newspaper, features a story about police brutality at the Little Earth Housing Projects, the nation's only urban housing development.

read the story at http://www.citypages.com

[mizzy]

I realized that I omitted that Little Earth is the nation's only urban housing development project that houses primarily American Indians.

[mizzy]

1. I can't see how the reporter was able to survey "most residents" at Little Earth. I can seeing saying "most of the residents interviewed".

2. Out of respect for Bill Means: I would ask, Are there residents from Little Earth that serve on the Police Community relations board or are there residents who have served on this board in the past?

[The following is excerpted from the city pages article]


"Make no mistake: There are a lot of people at Little Earth who despise the cops utterly. (One 19-year-old woman tells me that MPD cops are "the harassers of all native people.") But most residents make at least a practical accommodation with the MPD. They agree among themselves that the problems at Little Earth are so pervasive and so intractable that a police presence is required; they also seem to concur that shoddy treatment at the hands of the MPD is a way of life, the price of the ticket for getting law enforcement when you need it. "There is a fine line between the enforcement that people demand," says Bill Means, an American Indian representative on the city's Police Community Relations Council, "and brutality that comes with that enforcement.""

[brianold]

yeah i've never heard of any indians on the civilian review authority...

i'm certain they get drowned out by all the noise coming from the northside, for better or for worse.

how many indians are on the police force?

i think the civilain review idea is good.

and i think getting the police force to reflect the communities that it is politicing is a good idea as well.

[Nathaniel]

This is right up the street from HU...

Complex is Searched for Unauthorized Tenants

By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006; B04

The D.C. Housing Authority began a crackdown yesterday to rid one of
its most crime-ridden sites of unauthorized residents by changing
the locks on dozens of apartments and requiring every resident over
age 10 to get an identification card to carry at all times.

Housing officials in red T-shirts, accompanied by police, knocked on
the doors of all 174 apartments at the Park Morton complex in
Parkview, asking each person to produce identification. Those who
could not, or who were not listed on the lease, were asked to leave.

Authorities changed 42 locks, found at least four "loiterers" and
made one arrest.

One woman said her husband, whose name had not been added to her
lease, was wearing only underwear when he was instructed to dress
quickly and leave. Boyfriends, adult children and some toddlers also
had to go -- at least until tenants straightened things out with the
resident manager.

The goal, officials said, is to get a clear picture of the people
living in its buildings and to evict occupants who should not be
there. Many unauthorized persons, they said, loiter, deal drugs and
gamble with impunity.

It was the most systematic effort the agency had undertaken to get
leaseholders to honor the provisions of their leases, which bar
boarders.

A steady stream of angry residents, some surprised to find
themselves unable to enter their apartments, filed into the rental
office to lodge complaints and get new keys.

Karen M. Moone, a housing authority deputy executive director,
handled the complaints and said the harshest feedback came
from "people who don't live here."

"Residents have been complaining about illegal activity and not
feeling safe," Moone said. "The law-abiding residents feel
threatened often by people who are not supposed to be here."

Park Morton, off Georgia Avenue north of Howard University, is in
one of the city's crime hot spots. Although violent crime is down in
the neighborhood, D.C. police Cmdr. Larry McCoy said drug sales and
property crime persist within the complex.

Park Morton's courtyards are teeming with illegal activity daily,
said Nathan E. Bouvelle, the director of housing management.
Yesterday's sweep, Operation Reclaim Park Morton, sprang from a
request for change by longtime tenants. D.C. and housing authority
police plan to ask residents regularly to produce their
identification cards and to shoo away nonresidents.

"This is what we wanted," said Marie Whitfield, president of the
Park Morton Resident Council, who has lived in the complex for 30
years. "The majority of the residents decided that we wanted
improvement -- a clean, safe, decent place to live."

Public housing residents pay rent on a sliding scale, depending on
income. Those at Park Morton were notified about the identification
cards and inspection. But many said yesterday that they were unaware
that their guests and family members would be forced to leave. And
they said that housing officials should be ashamed for treating
residents poorly.

"The people who were inspectors laughed at us," said Anasa Wilson,
25, whose houseguest was ejected. Wilson said the woman, a friend,
had been helping to care for her two small children -- one of whom
recently had surgery. "They called us nasty. Babies were put out."

Wilson and several neighbors showed visitors apartments with plaster
falling from ceilings and roaches teeming from holes, closets and
drawers. Wilson's closet was filled with glue strips, bug bombs and
insecticides.

"We shouldn't have to live like this," said Wilson, a two-year
resident. "I'm doing everything I can to keep the roaches off my
kids."

Almost everyone in her three-story building acknowledged another
lease violation: They all own cats. It helps control the rat
population, they said.

"I despise cats," Wilson said. "But I have to have them. Everybody
has one."

The crackdown coincided with what the housing authority billed as a
day-long festival that included free hotdogs, hamburgers and bags
filled with groceries. Officials from various agencies set up booths
offering free services to residents. A band and a disc jockey began
playing tunes in the afternoon as students arrived home from school.

But many residents were not in a party mood and said the resources
could have been better spent fixing up dilapidated apartments.

Phyllis Lomax, 25, and her boyfriend, Jamar Bush, live in the
complex with their three children. The couple may have to find a new
home. Bush is not on the lease and was told to leave yesterday. "I
don't have another place to live," Bush said. "I'm trying to be with
my kids."

Adrienne Todman, deputy chief of staff for the housing authority,
said that officials do not relish the idea of breaking up families,
but the agency also has to be cognizant of how federal dollars are
being spent.

"We need to know who's living there," she said. "It's not like we
showed up at night to see who's sleeping there. If we don't do this,
what do we do?"

http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-
dyn/content/ article/2006/ 09/21/AR20060921 01762_pf. html