Martial Law has started

It may be just a random mayor overreacting. Or it may be a test case to see how it would go over on a larger scale.

Arkansas town imposes 'martial law' style lockdown
...
Mayor James Valley on Thursday called for a lockdown of the roughly 10-block neighborhood northwest of City Hall, in what was formerly West Helena.

No loitering. No walking the streets. "No hanging out."

On Thursday night, 18-20 police officers carrying M-16 rifles, shotguns and night-vision scopes saturated the "curfew zone" for 5&1/2 hours, arresting about eight people and confiscating drugs and loaded weapons, police said.

"It's something akin to martial law in that particular area," Valley said. "It got to the point where somebody was going to get seriously hurt or killed if we didn't do something."

In other words, no one had been shot. This violation of the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments is happening and the event that provoked it doesn't appear (via the source I read about it in, anyway) to have resulted in a single injury or death.

The lock down will be enforced 24 hours a day, according to the order, and all pedestrian and vehicle traffic will be subject to stop and investigation.

Moreover, the city's Code Enforcement Department will be issuing nuisance-abatement evictions for people living in the lock down area in any house where at least three previous criminal violations have occurred, the order said.

Would you think that dispersing criminals into other neighborhoods will help the situation? I'd think it would just make the problem spread.

Ronald Scott, the city's assistant police chief, said police are using common sense when dealing with pedestrians in the lock down area. If they are polite and have a good reason to be out or walking, then police will let them go. If they are suspicious or have "a smart mouth," they will be told to get inside, leave the area or be arrested, Scott said.

Watch this story closely. If FEMA gets involved, we'll know that the shit is about to hit the fan nationally.