House Arrest En Masse

Maybe it's because it's an election year, but I'm stunned that I haven't heard about the situation in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas until now (via Appellate Law & Practice). In short, a large hunk of the small town (created by the merger of two separate towns in 2006), is currently under a 24-hours curfew as a crime fighting tool:

In August, [Mayor James] Valley and the Helena-West Helena City Council, citing out-of-control crime, unanimously created a 24-hour curfew zone in one of the city's poorest areas, a 10-block sector that has had its share of violence and drugs. Valley and the council later extended a form of the curfew citywide that allows for police to conduct searches of any passerby.

Immediately after the curfew passed, the 30-officer Helena-West Helena Police Department flooded the area. Some of the officers brought from home assault rifles with night-vision scopes. With City Council approval -- but without probable cause -- police officers stopped anyone walking or driving through the area residents now call The Zone.

If you didn't have any warrants or contraband, you apparently were just ordered home. Alas, 32 folks were arrested after being stopped, in prosecutions that (as the article points out) are likely to be thrown out of court once they get there.

Of course, the real damage being done is to the innocent folks being treated like criminals. Thankfully, the ACLU is on the case and sparring with Mayor Valley:

A few days after the city enacted its curfew, ACLU representatives arrived from Little Rock, registering complaints of civil rights violations at a City Council meeting. They were met with heckling from the town's politicians.

"You can't tell me the crime problem in Helena-West Helena is any worse than in the Bronx or L.A. or Cincinnati, or Little Rock, for that matter, where they haven't suspended the Constitution," says Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas.

For his part, Valley is unapologetic.

"I've offered to give the ACLU lady a house on Second Street," he says. "That way, she can see if the Constitution will protect her there."

Responds Sklar: "The arrogance of small-town tyrants never ceases to amaze me."

This particular small-town tyrant has some other problems, as well:

When the city's animal shelter fell into disrepair recently, stray dogs became a nuisance. Instead of working with volunteer groups on a solution, Valley ordered the dogs released into nearby St. Francis National Forest.

"We just opened the door and let 'em go," Valley says. "Ain't our problem now."

Following a complaint from the Humane Society of Southeast Arkansas, Valley was charged with misdemeanor animal abandonment, mistreatment and neglect. When asked about the pending charge, the mayor simply rolls his eyes.

Valley faces professional problems as well. The Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct recently suspended his law license for 30 days following complaints of misconduct and shoddy legal work.

That's lead some citizens to wonder if the curfew is just a clever PR stunt to distract from the mayor's other problems.

Regardless, it's a blatant spit in the face of the Constitution that simply cannot be justified on general crime fighting grounds. It should enrage folks across the country, but it won't. Not that, in this day and age, I'm surprised. Sadly.