"i see that the great indy g-d drew poe has not changed his tune. i liked to believe that he would have ceased with the name calling, which was his forte when he was a volunteer editor."

Hahaha, someone starting every post to me with "indy g-d" needs to seriously rethink any comments about other people "name calling". But yeah, when a bunch of trolls show up and immediately start hurling stupid crap and insults, you better believe I'll demonstrate that I learned long ago the best way to deal with a bully is to bully them back 10 times worse. As usual, you're just another troll calling names immediately, who then points fingers later.

"while i cannot speak for all cops involved, i can say that a grerat number of mpd members do not want to conduct these roadblocks & checkpoints. we understand the real criminal element will avoid the checkpoints, & that those who would actually benefit from them & some who just happen to unluckily drive into them get stopped & possibly arrested."

Precisely. I hate to be seen agreeing with you, but the fact is that the people actually running these checkpoints are not excited about it, by and large. They know inherently that the residents resent it, that they won't get much accomplished, and it's 80-90 frigging degrees outside. When you announce a big police roadblock, people who have a strong reason to avoid getting caught figure out pretty fast to avoid the big roadblock. Which is the entire point -- the roadblocks serve as a big public display to look like it's addressing this or that problem, when in fact it does nothing but create new problems and violates the rights of the residents.

But someone up the chain of command decides it's a quick, easy response and has the added bonus of militarizing these neighborhoods, so it happens anyway. If cops would refuse to participate, and speak publicly saying these things are counter-productive and only make the residents distrust the police more etc, maybe this sort of crap would be less likely to be suggested in the first place.