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These Streets Are Watching

However, if nothing else, cop watch can and will and does inform citizens of their lefts as citizens. Informs citizens of what is proper police conduct and what is improper police conduct. Informs citizens of what you can do to protect yourself in case you get in any type of predicament with the police.

The Streets are Watching is a 50 minute video that takes a fresh look at police accountability through the eyes of three communities; Denver, Cincinnati and Berkeley. Independent filmmaker, Jacob Crawford, weaves three cities responses to police brutality into a single tale of community empowerment and direct action.

Within an amazing collection of footage that portrays police conduct and misconduct, the film conveys basic legal concepts that can provide practical help to groups and individuals seeking a clearer understanding of their lefts when dealing with police. The film is divided into sections that explain our basic lefts, tactics for documenting police activity and ideas for further action and organizing.

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  1. This is a good idea in all ways. A cop being filmed will tend to follow procedure, not blast people sitting defenselessly with pepper spray or beat down someone they don’t take a shine to. Wish we had a video of what the phony cop in the Trayvon Martin case did.

  2. My summary of this documentary is this. I’m disgusted to say the least. Copwatch is merely a socialist organisation run by unemployed criminals spending all their time filming Police doing a job you couldn’t pay me enough to do. Police brutality is not to be condoned and suitable government bodies should be in place to investigate misconduct. This film is merely about Anti-authoritarians arming themselves with video cameras antagonising Police and assisting criminals. I was disturbed with several parts of the documentary including, It doesn’t matter if a complaint is not substantiated because it is still recorded on their personnel file. This merely encourages criminals to lodge false complaints. Something else that disturbed me was that they congratulate themselves because they reduced the amount of arrests and fines during the chicano ‘cruise’. Call me crazy I thought police are employed to detect crime and act on it. Perhaps Copwatch could make a more positive impact on society and film crimes being committed. One comment made by an officer sums it up, “Do you film drug dealers?” Throughout the doco they accuse Police of not being transparent. My question is, do they supply footage to assist Police with their prosecution cases. I doubt it. I would sympathise to their cause if they helped out both sides of the law.

    • Perplexed Oz,

      Your response is a very emotional defense of the police, which suggests more of a psychological motivation than a rational one. Have you actually looked in to this subject? Police abuse is rampant, the police assault, rape, kill, extort, and frame people constantly. This is the nature of compulsory police systems as formulated in our communities. The police ARE the criminals, this must be understood, to ignore it is a betrayal of our citizens.

      Clearly you have an emotional investment in the idea of police, but the idea, the theory of how police are supposed to work, is simply not the reality. By supporting police, and attacking those who are trying to stop police abuse you are turning against your own people, you are a traitor to your fellow citizens. That is a dangerous game to play, historically speaking blind support of authorities has been endemic of fascism.

    • your so dumb this video is about how police abuse there power not them doing the right thing. a police officer can get away with anything he wants because he has more power in there words and if its not video taped how can these people see real justice ? believe it or not but drug dealers still have rights. but not only that if the police is supposed to help you then why wouldnt they care if someone stands there video taping it they would have enough proof that they did the right thing but no theyll push you away or try to block the camara its because they have nothing to prove there doing the right thing they dont want a video going on youtube of them doing the wrong

      after a while these people get used to it and forget how to handle a real situation i think copwatch is a good idea its a movment to show that theres people watching very closely at there actions but yet they dont care

  3. Pretty informative and useful, though the exact boundary of rights and police powers could have been illustrated more clearly.

    It’s a shame that people even have to put up with this, but it’s all the result of the state monopoly system. If police services were private rather than public, they would operate much more humanely. No one is going to hire a police-force that would harass, fine, or arrest them.