Anti-Gang Loitering Ordinance

UPDATE: The "anti-gang loitering" ordinance has passed.

Read more.
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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board once again reveals its cluelessness.

The Editorial Board thinks Ald. Tony Zielinski's "anti-gang loitering" ordinance is redundant.

It's just a feel good measure, something to con the public into believing that real action is being taken to help solve the crime crisis.

The editorial begins:

When the community is in a frenzy, as it is now over crime, lawmakers feel a compulsion to act - an emotion sometimes best left repressed. Lawmakers are wont to, well, make laws - any law, even one that duplicates what's already on the books. Redundant measures will make politicians look as if they're tackling the crisis - when in fact they will have made zero headway on the problem.

The condescending language used in the editorial, "the community is in a frenzy," belittles the severity of the crime problem in Milwaukee and berates its citizens for being rightly upset about conditions in the city.

Residents should be in a frenzy. The city is in crisis when it comes to crime. That's not an emotional response. That's based on a rational assessment of daily life in Milwaukee.

Again, I don't think the members of the Editorial Board bother to read the Journal Sentinel. They don't seem to get the pervasiveness of the crime plaguing the city.

The Board argues against the anti-gang loitering measure as superfluous. According to the Board, such a measure would make "zero headway" on solving the problem of thugs terrorizing the public and killing or wounding innocents.

It accuses Tony Zielinski and the Council of political posturing.

The Board challenges the Common Council:

The Milwaukee Common Council must decide today whether to play this game.

Taking steps to cut back on violent crime isn't a game.

The awkward ordinance would hand police powers they already wield. For the sake of the principle that the code of ordinances be clean and simple, the council should vote the measure down, as it narrowly did last year.

What's more, loitering laws do raise civil liberties questions because of their possible infringement on the constitutional right to assemble - a reason to be sparing with such measures.

The ordinance is more convoluted than it sounds. Police couldn't just walk in and disperse a menacing gathering. First, as a city attorney opinion notes, the law would require substantial intelligence to allow police to identify the subjects as gang members. Second, police must keep the gathering under surveillance to ascertain that "gang loitering" is taking place.

But such loitering would entail violations of current laws, for which the subjects already can be arrested, as the opinion says. They could be breaking laws barring loitering in a roadway, disorderly conduct, disorderly assembly, unlawful assembly. Or they could have been observed engaging in such criminal conduct as drug dealing or carrying concealed weapons.

This is so lame!

On the one hand, the Board argues that loitering is already illegal. No need for another law.

On the other hand, the Board argues that loitering ordinances infringe on one's Constitutional right to assemble. No trampling on civil liberties -- another reason for being against loitering laws.

What a load!

The Editorial Board is so inconsistent and so hypocritical.

There can be no infringements on the right to assemble but it's a totally different matter when it comes to the right to bear arms. Yes, the Board is always looking out to protect civil liberties. Sure it is.

What about hate crime?

There are already laws that cover assault and rape and murder. Why create additional laws to deal with crimes that are already covered by other laws?

It's clear to me that the Board has a "What, me worry?" attitude when it comes to the city's crime crisis.

Worse yet, it shows more concern for safeguarding the civil liberties of thugs than it does for the safety of the law-abiding public.

I think it's time that the Editorial Board decides whether it's going to continue to play the disgraceful game of pushing its decidedly liberal agenda while pushing the good of the community aside.