Checkpoints: They Make You Stop and Think

Border patrol: Checkpoints in Northeast Washington's Trinidad area were set up July 19 in response to a wave of violence. No shootings have been reported since. (By Dominic Bracco II -- The Washington Post)
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Checkpoints control geographic borders. People who fit a profile are led away to separate rooms, to be questioned.

In conflict zones, checkpoints have been dangerous places to guard -- and dangerous places to pass. Countless soldiers have been killed by seemingly innocent people. And seemingly hostile, but innocent, people have been killed by soldiers.

Checkpoints in Rwanda manned by children, carrying AK-47s and drinking bottles of Guinness and demanding money. Checkpoints in Bosnia. Checkpoints in Lebanon. Checkpoints in Israel where two neighboring societies meet, one for inspection, the other to be inspected. Checkpoints in Iraq, where some soldiers and Marines say they are sitting ducks, never knowing what car (or pedestrian) will hold a bomb.

The barriers bring with them questions of civil liberties, the right to move unencumbered.

The Partnership for Civil Justice sued the District of Columbia in June to challenge the constitutionality of checkpoints. "The District's military-style roadblock system was deployed, in part, to give the appearance that the government is addressing this deeply felt need," the class action complaint argues. "But it is neither constitutional, nor effective."

Those who guard checkpoints lack the power of omniscience or omnipotence; they cannot see inside a person, cannot discern malign or benign intent.

"How do you define a good or bad neighbor when you look at a person?" says D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5). "When you have to bring order and control to neighborhoods, they are short-term measures at best. In the long term, you run the risk of people feeling they live in a police state."

You drive through Trinidad and wonder: Could you determine the good and the bad by just looking?

A woman with long braids and long legs in tight jeans walks briskly up Trinidad Avenue NE. She is holding the hand of a small child. The child can't keep pace with the strides of the woman walking up hill. The child is running beside her.

A man with gray hair is washing a car from a bucket, as a crowd watches him.

A young man in a white T-shirt sits on the curb as police search his car, looking between the seats. Another young man, with no shirt and shiny dreads, is walking down the block. Looking at you looking at him.

Along Trinidad Avenue, men sit on their open porches overlooking the street. There is a woman sweeping her sidewalk, brushing hard against the concrete, straw broom beating away the dirt.

A police officer sits alone, his squad car's lights flashing, flashing. But he is not stopping anyone. It is as though he is waiting for a command. Other police cars are waiting at other entrances into Trinidad.

Of course they can't seal every entrance into the neighborhood. As you drive around, you see many side streets that are open, unprotected from the bad elements who could at this hour of the evening already have crossed the invisible barrier.