CITY COMPILES LIST OF 'POSSIBLE' CRIME SUSPECTS

Two movies -- one old, and a classic, one new, and destined for the DVD
scrap heap -- give us a look into the minds of those who would stop crime
before it starts. In the first, 1942's "Casablanca," actor Claude Rains, as
Captain Louis Renault, intones, "Round up the usual suspects" near the
conclusion of the film. In the second, 2002's "Minority Report," homicide
has become nearly obsolete, thanks to "pre-crime units" that arrest
potential murderers before they can kill.

Truth, as they say, can be stranger than fiction. Enter the Wilmington,
Del., police department, which in a case of life imitating art, aims to get
a head-start on crime by compiling a database of "bad guys" before they do
anything wrong. Round up the suspects on the list, Renault. Send out the
pre-crime unit.

What is happening in Wilmington is this: Information on potential crime
suspects -- many of whom have clean slates -- is being gathered. Photos are
being taken, names and addresses are being listed. A lot of the information
is collected by special police units created to fight drug dealing in the
city, units that have come to be known in some Wilmington neighborhoods as
"jump-out squads," for their habit of jumping out of cars and making quick
arrests.

Our concern is not with Wilmington's desire to crack down on drug dealing
or crime in general; that's commendable. What is disturbing is the
concerted effort by police units to gather information on innocent
bystanders who might have nothing to do with the criminal activity
occurring in their vicinity. A statement made by Wilmington's mayor, James
Baker, is illuminating: "I don't care what anyone but a court of law
thinks," Baker said. "If I say it's constitutional, it's constitutional."

That's a frightening attitude for someone in a position of power to have,
an attitude that states, at its core, that the constitutionality of actions
taken against citizens has been placed in the hands of one individual
unless a court of law should decide later that it was a mistake. As nearly
as we can recall, constitutions, state or federal, are designed to head off
these kinds of bad decisions before they reach critical mass, not after
they've gone to court. Placing the power to decide whether or not someone
might be a bad person in the hands of law enforcement isn't a bright idea;
police should deal with things that have happened, not those that may.

Our position on this issue is simple: Unless an individual is known to have
been involved in a crime or police have probable cause to believe they may
be a suspect in the commission of a crime, there is no reason to hold them
or gather any information on them. Reduced to its lowest common
denominator, this translates to "arrest the bad guys, let everybody else go."