Letters to the Editor
Washington Post, July 7, 1992
The raid on bicycle couriers in Dupont Circle is a disgrace to the U.S. Park Police, who committed textbook police harassment, and to the civic "leaders" of the Dupont Circle area, who instigated and applauded the harassment {District Weekly, June 25} .
When police officials admit that confiscation of unregistered bicycles is "a ruse" for some other end, it's time for us all to get worried. The Post's article glibly says, "The real issue is drinking in the park." Nonsense. The Park Service allows drinking in almost every other federal park in the District. So what's the real problem? Drunkenness? Pot smoking? Urinating in public? If so, the Park Police should enforce those laws -- or maybe supply portable toilets. Instead the Park Police invented a reason for rounding up a group of people and confiscating their property. That's harassment.
The Post left important questions unanswered. For example, the reporter quotes Dennis Bass of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission as saying the messengers "are harassing the law-abiding people." When? How? The Post failed to follow up on this blanket accusation.
Both the Park Police and the civic "leaders" should get their priorities straight. When police use rarely enforced laws to fine "troublemakers" and confiscate their property, citizens have a lot more to worry about than messengers drinking beer in Dupont Circle.
PAUL BENNETT, Washington
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