Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Pubdate: Tuesday 16 June 1998
Author: Michelle Malkin / Times staff columnist

Our Newshawk writes: Ms. Malkin is a conservative who has a strong
libertarian streak. The following article is on another "drug war" subject;
however, on local TV, I have seen her strongly defend medicinal marijuana.
One such instance was with, now deceased, cancer patient Ralph Seeley.

WHY ARE WE PAYING COPS TO TARGET LAWFUL VICTIMS?

OSCAR and Barbara McCoy are not alone.

Dozens of small-business representatives, civil-rights leaders and
grass-roots activists joined the McCoys last week at a public hearing to
protest Seattle's stealthy crackdown on nightclub and tavern owners. During
the contentious Seattle Human Rights Commission meeting, neighbors and
friends implored the commission to look out for the constitutional rights
of small-business owners. Free-market advocates and jazz artists criticized
city regulations that result in fewer music venues.

Socialists and Libertarians alike united against a proposed
"added-activities license" ordinance that would put entertainment licensing
decisions in the fickle hands of the Seattle Police Department.

Black Vietnam vets told proudly of serving their country and fighting
enemies abroad, only to return home to fight insurmountable enemies in City
Hall who shut down their built-from-scratch businesses under the guise of
the war on drugs. One grown man wept as he recounted real-life regulatory
nightmares that echoed the McCoys' experience.

But through nearly two hours of passionate testimony, City Attorney Mark
Sidran sat stone-faced. Jaw-clenched. Dry-eyed. Unperturbed.

The McCoys, you'll recall, are engaged in a David-and-Goliath legal battle
with Sidran to keep their two-decades-old family soul food restaurant and
dancing venue open. After the family worked successfully for years with
individual cops and federal drug agents to combat crime in their Central
District neighborhood, the city abruptly yanked law-enforcement resources
from the area around Oscar's II on 2051 E. Madison Ave.

In one of Sidran's most recent court missives blaming the McCoys for
narcotics activity, he argued: "It's a pretty far stretch to think that
drug dealers magically appeared inside Oscar's II to wait to sell drugs to
random police informants."

But across the street from the McCoys, another black-owned business was
subjected to precisely the kind of extraordinary set-up Sidran derided in
his legal brief. As reported in The Stranger and recounted on KIRO-AM's
"Dave Ross Show" last week, two police officers teamed up with a local
hustler in late January to lure a drug dealer into Deano's on 2030 E.
Madison Ave. According to a police report, the undercover cops "rewarded"
their informant with a piece of cocaine, a practice one official noted "is
not uncommon."

Cops dealing crack freebies. Just how common is this twisted public-private
partnership? Police officials say such crack rebates are necessary to
maintain police cover, but as Ross commented, the idea of "sworn police
officers enabling somebody else to supply a drug habit is kind of creepy."
The idea of subsidizing these elaborate stings - targeting lawful
businesses, not criminal drug traffickers - is more than creepy. It's a
gross misallocation of scarce public resources. Why are we paying cops to
collaborate with criminals against law-abiding taxpayers?

"I could understand if they were doing this to the bad guys," says Dean
Falls, the black Vietnam vet who owns Deano's. "But I am the good guy."

Sidran repeated his mantra, "this is not a race issue." But a heavily
documented report submitted to the Human Rights Commission by club owner
Chris Clifford provides troubling evidence of a racially discriminatory
pattern of enforcement. Out of 15 clubs and taverns targeted by the city in
the last seven years, 10 were owned or run by non-whites. Nine are now
closed. Oscar's II is open but barely afloat after the city succeeded in
getting the McCoys' state liquor license revoked. In sworn testimony cited
by Clifford, a police captain could not recall a single club that catered
to a primarily white clientele ever being similarly targeted for license
revocation.

The city relies on dubious causal links to justify killing off certain
clubs instead of protecting them. For instance, minority businesses have
been blamed for lost wallets, train station thefts and deaths, drive-bys,
fights, gunfire and drunken-driving arrests well beyond the owners' sight
or control.

The Police Department also tallies 911 calls as a sign of a club's
inability to control crime, even as the cops encourage club owners to call
for help when they need it. Police spearhead a Byzantine administrative and
civil-law process designed to cripple robust, legitimate, minority-owned
businesses located on prime real estate coveted by out-of-state developers.

Attendees at the Seattle Human Rights Commission meeting last week
contended that if every establishment were subjected to these standards, no
Bon Marche, Holiday Inn, public high school or sports arena in Seattle
would be left standing.

"We need procedures that anyone can meet, rather than an ever-changing,
inconsistent process left to the whim of city officials," McCoys supporter
Rachel Hawkridge told the panel. "Don't the police have enough laws to
enforce without regulating another matter?" asked Seattle club-goer Tim
Baker. "You all need to search your souls because there's something very
wrong with this," warned Eddie Rye of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Eddie Rye and I have vastly different opinions on many issues involving
race and preferential treatment. But we are on the same side of this
human-rights battle because the victims of arbitrary police power are not
asking for government favors, handouts or rigged outcomes. The McCoys are
simply asking city leaders to protect and provide what Seattle liberals
profess to cherish so deeply: equal treatment under the law.

Michelle Malkin's column appears Tuesday on editorial pages of The Times.
Her e-mail address is: - ---
Checked-by: Mike Gogulski