Crime-Riddled Town Takes Debatable Action
Martha Coleman thinks her truck was set on fire because she spoke out against the criminals in her neighborhood. The gunfire outside was so bad she moved her family out of the corner bedrooms in the line of fire.
Now, six people sleep in the living room and five in the kitchen.
"They bring their mattress, every night we put them on the floor," she told CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan. "It's safer here, because you got gunfire comin' from this way."
In Helena-West Helena, Ark., an impoverished town of 15,000 on the sunset side of the Mississippi River. Police are fighting to regain control of their town.
The mayor imposed a 24-hour curfew on a 10-block section of town. For three days, police checked the IDs of everyone in or out. They made 15 drug- and gun-related arrests and served another 18 outstanding warrants.
Some residents thought the tactics were too drastic.
"I feel like if you work and if you pay taxes you should have the right to walk anywhere you feel like, whenever you feel ready," said resident Jessica Johnson.
Others say they're tired of living in fear.
"I'm scared for my grandkids more than anything," resident Walter Vaughn said. "I'm gettin older ... but them children's got a life and I want 'em to have a good life. I think we doing the right thing by having the curfew."
With unanimous backing from the City Council, this week police expanded the curfew to the entire city. Now, on random nights, 18 police and sheriffs - three times the normal number - work 12- to 16-hour shifts enforcing the letter of the law.
While Sreenivasan was riding along with police, one car was pulled over for having a broken license plate light.
Police found open containers inside. A failed sobriety test led to a DUI arrest.
"They're deciding who to stop, they're enforcing the law depending on what the person looks like to them," said Rita Sklar, the executive director of the Arkansas ACLU. "That's what they do in dictatorships, that's what they do in China."
The ACLU says curfews like these are unconstitutional, violating the rights to assemble, due process and protections against unreasonable searches.
Couric & Co.: Read more from Hari Sreenivasan's police ride-along.
"I know they have problems there, and I'm very sympathetic but there are cities all over the country where there are hundreds of deaths and hundreds of violent crimes and they don't do this," Sklar said. "They do good policing."
"I've heard the critics, and they make an academic argument, but I invite them to come down here on the streets and deal with the problems we've been dealin' with," said Mayor James Valley.
Deciding between constitutional rights and a night of sleep is no contest for people like Martha Coleman.
"This is working," she said. "We can sleep now."