Sanctuary zones – 21st Century style

In the 1960s and 1970s, during the Third (or Fourth, I lose track) Indochina War, the stupidity of LBJ and RMN (and their advisors, and Congress) designated certain areas (like Laos, Cambodia, and China (Guangxi and Yunnan provinces, specifically) as “sanctuary zones.” US and Allied military forces could enter not these areas, which were used by Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam for supply, movement, and housing. For much of the “limited” war, I am told (though I’ve not spoken with anyone who actually saw it) that a VC or PAVN soldier could stand a foot outside the border of Vietnam in those areas, and thumb their nose at the American, ARVN, Aussie, or ROK soldiers inches away – and even SHOOT at those soldiers, who were not allowed to return fire.

In the last two decades, we have read about “No-Go” zones in several European and British countries, in which police are prohibited from entering because they are occupied by Islamists or other groups. Even if there are riots, fires, rapes, looting or other anti-social behavior (call it “aggression against other people”) in those areas.

Now, No-Go zones have been established in numerous American and Canadian cities, into which police cannot or will not go, based either on the orders of their political masters, or out of fear. One of those is the six-block area in Capital Hill of Seattle, variously called CHAZ or CHOP. There are other cities with these zones – which are clearly sanctuary zones for criminals like rioters, looters, arsonists, rapists, and murderers. These include Minneapolis (and possibly Saint Paul), Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston, among others.

Now a new set of sanctuary zones has been established in the City and County of Denver – home to more than a half-million people and once a Western, frontier city.

A couple of weeks back, the Board of Education of the Denver Public Schools (DPS) “severed” its “connections” with the Denver Police Department (DPD). This was to fight racism and bigotry and bias, and to defund the DPD by ending a $720,000 annual contract to provide 18 “sworn officers” as “school resource officers.” Apparently, police will no longer even be allowed in the schools or on the campuses, but the school district will continue to have its own “security force” of about 100 armed and unarmed officers (or guards). The DPS board is writing a policy to prohibit referring a student to police, calling on police for assistance, or cooperating in any way with police.

So apparently a student (or maybe even teacher or staff) who has committed a crime, or been accused of committing a crime OUTSIDE the school will be able to claim sanctuary in the schools and hide out from police. (And possibly even those wanted by the police even if they are NOT students.) Provided, I’m sure, that the crime of which they are accused is NOT a crime in the eyes of the school administration.

What could go wrong? No more racism in DPS. At least not from anyone but other students, teachers, administration, and staff.

I never (thanks be to God) attended a DPS or other mega-school: I had all of 4 classmates in my graduating senior class in a frontier town in Eastern Colorado. (And ALL of us graduated: two of us were commissioned and had military careers as well as careers in engineering and teaching, one took over his family ranch, another took over his family automotive business, and the last one married her sweetheart and runs his family ranch with him, as well as running the school district!)

Even though we were only a couple of hours drive from the DPS, we hicks were not allowed to participate in any events at those elite locations: no sports events, no music festivals, no speech meets – nada, zip. We were too rural, too much yokels for the big-city people to want us around them. We might contaminate their students.

But I did have several opportunities to see the inside of several DPS high schools, as my mother and I were members of local symphony orchestras who practiced in these schools.

Even fifty years ago, they were cesspools of racial hatred, gang violence, and crime: bullying, assault, theft, cheating, drug sales and use, alcoholism, vandalism, and more. They were like prisons in many ways. Part of the “security force” in those days were the Junior ROTC units that each high school (including ones like George Washington, Manual, East, and so forth). That’s right: Junior ROTC, ages 14-17, in Class A uniforms and carrying small billie clubs. (The women in those JROTC had their own elite unit for the top 15-20%: instead of wearing then-standard Army Green blouses, tunics and skirts, each school had a special color of uniform, complete with mini-skirt – I was told that they were very good at defusing tense situations.

JROTC units were completely integrated: Anglo, Hispanic, Black: few other organizations, including many sports teams, were.

Now, half a century later, I can only imagine what the schools are like – and what they will be like when they are fully turned into sanctuaries from police. Of course, they are already sanctuaries from the parents and families of students, who are not wanted to be involved in the schools except in the sanitized surroundings of PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences – and of course sports events, where they pay through the nose for the privilege. I am not sure about Denver, but I know of other high schools who have child care centers for the children of students, and of course, virtually all urban high schools have medical clinics to provide certain intimate supplies and advise, and coordinate with abortion clinics.

They are (and have been for years) sanctuaries from reality. And become more so.

Keep children OUT of these horrors.