The first measure of the major crime bill known as Secure DC went into effect Thursday morning, March 14. Beginning at 8 a.m., the Metropolitan Police Department began enforcing three “drug-free zones” across the District. 

The designated areas where police will have more authority to disburse people they believe are involved in illegal activity are among the more controversial provisions in the comprehensive bill Mayor Muriel Bowser signed into law last Monday. 

According to MPD, the following three areas are considered drug-free zones from now until Tuesday, March 19, at 7:59 a.m.:

Zone 1, located in Ward 2 : 

• The 600–700 block of I Street NW 
• The 700–800 block of 8th Street NW 
• The 700 block of G Street NW 
• The 700 block of 7th Street NW 
• Gallery Way Place NW 
• The 700–800 block of 6th Street NW

Zone 2, located in Ward 7 

• The 3800–3900 block of Minnesota Avenue NE 
• The 3900–4000 block of Benning Road NE 
• The 3900–4000 block of Clay Place NE 
• The 300 block of 40th Street NE

Zone 3, located in Ward 8 

• The 2300 block of Ainger Place SE 
• The 2700 block of Langston Place SE 
• The 2300 block of Raynolds Place SE  
• The 2700 block of Bruce Place SE

Jay Brown, a police reform advocate and social impact consultant at the nonprofit Community Shoulders, visited each of the zones Thursday morning. He says the city failed to effectively communicate the potential impacts. 

“People didn’t understand the consequences of not complying with officer commands, what powers were given, or what constitutional rights were diminished by this bill,” Brown says. 

According to Brown, this failure to communicate extends to members of law enforcement, too. 

“I’m getting calls and text messages from MPD members themselves who do not like the law,” Brown tells City Paper. “You’re putting the police officers in situations that are not safe for them. Not just for the community, but for them. You’re putting them out with no scenario-based training, no live training, no academy-based training—to enforce laws that are going to create hostility.” 

Brown recorded his interaction Thursday morning with MPD Officer Kirk M. Del Po, who described officers’ training for drug-free zones as “an online thing,” and acknowledged that he had not yet completed the full course. Del Po said in the video that he was working for the Metro system Tuesday morning, and was not one of the officers working the drug-free zones.

“We’re not working the drug free program today. We’re not going to be part of it,” Del Po says in the video, which was shared with City Paper. “As the new changes go, all police officers will be affected by it. … Within a week or so or less we’ll get all the credits.”

“How it’s going to affect us and you and every other citizen, I can’t really comment on it yet,” he adds.

Brown adds that the confusion and ambiguity about the implementation of these zones furthers the divide between Black and Brown residents of the District and members of MPD. “People are concerned about the abuse of power,” Brown tells City Paper. “They are basically burning a bridge that was already shady because it was never built on a solid foundation. They’re just going to burn the whole bridge down of racial community relations.” 

Within these temporarily restricted zones, the MPD chief has the power to declare an area of up to 1,000 square feet a drug-free zone for up to 120 hours (five days). According to a notification from Chief Pamela Smith, MPD officers are “authorized to disperse groups of people congregating in the zone for the purpose of illegal drug activity” if they are within the boundaries of a drug-free zone. 

For residents in affected areas, the guidelines for this enforcement remain unclear. According to the guidelines on drug-free zones posted by MPD, these areas are only meant to affect two or more people congregating for the purpose of “possessing, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute illegal drugs.” 

In the same paragraph, however, MPD also acknowledges that “any person who fails to disperse after being instructed to do so by a uniformed MPD officer who reasonably believes the person is congregating for the purpose of committing an offense under Title IV of the Controlled Substances Act, is subject to arrest.”

This provision adds a new layer of complexity for D.C. residents. “Loitering is a constitutionally protected activity and the District can’t make it a crime for a person to stand around or to fail to disperse when ordered to disperse,” Melissa Wasser, policy counsel at the ACLU of D.C., tells City Paper. “[Dispersal orders] are too low of a standard. It’s not valid unless it’s based on probable cause to believe that the person who’s ordered to disperse has committed a crime. But that’s only a reasonable belief, which is a much lower standard.”

Historically, drug-free zone enforcement disproportionately affects Black and Brown residents across the country. According to research from the Sentencing Project, a decarceration research and advocacy center based in D.C., drug-free zone laws “have created a number of serious issues within the criminal justice system, by frequently imposing excessive penalties and by subjecting urban poor and minority populations to harsher penalties than others for similar drug offenses.”

A previous incarnation of these temporary restricted zones existed for 22 years in the District. From 1996 to 2014, the Anti-Loitering Drug Free Zone was used as a means of disrupting open-air drug markets across the city. The law was repealed by D.C. City Council in 2014 due to concerns that these zones enabled racial profiling. 

Despite these concerns, councilmembers across the District stand by the promise that these drug-free zones will reduce crime across the city. Asked about the implementation of the zone, Councilmember Vince Gray of Ward 7, where the second drug-free zone is currently in effect, tells City Paper via email, “I supported Secure DC legislation, which includes the implementation of drug-free zones in neighborhoods that have been experiencing persistent problems. Residents, businesses and visitors in the area of the Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road intersection deserve to live, shop, dine, recreate, commute and work in a neighborhood that is as safe as any other in the District. I hope this new effort is able to achieve that.”