8:51am December 30, 2013

➸ (Racism, police brutality) Moniquilliloquies.: About Cop Watch

apihtawikosisan:

ladyatheist:

i-am-septima:

baddominicana:

poemsofthedead:

note-a-bear:

So there are groups that do this, they stay in highly policed areas on shifts and bring cameras and such, and record to make sure police brutality doesn’t escalate, and when it happens there’s evidence against it.

But that’s not the only way it can happen.

Every single person is entitled to watch an arrest go down as long as they are not obstructing or interfering. That means, if you see cops bumrush someone, even if that person is waving a gun, you are allowed, even legally permitted and encouraged to watch the events occur.

This is important white folks, because the cops work inyourservice. Oh sure, they’re supposedly in the service of “the common good” but we all know that means protecting white people.

-

-

And now a story, when I was in high school, and my mom was working under a horrific principal, she was late to work one day because there was something going on in our neighborhood. Cops were gathered near our pharmacy and a guy was on the roof (it’s a little over one story, so he wasn’t a jumper or anything) and she stayed as long as she could and watched the scenario go down for a while. Not because she’s trifling. not because she’s nosy. But because she saw a POC and cops gathered and said to herself “I want to make sure this goes by the book.”

And that’s all it takes to be a cop watcher.

You acknowledge that you, as a white person, are in a relative position of safety and you watch. You bear witness, because your voice, unfortunately, carries more weight than ours in the criminal justice system.

Justice is not blind, nor should you be.

If there are cops, and they outnumber an individual, shit, even if it’s 1:1, it is your responsibility to keep an eye on the scenario and take down whatever information you can. And if it looks like something shady is going on, you areobligatedto call in to your local precinct and say “Listen, I saw X happen on Y, and it looked questionable.” And if you get a negative response, well, y’know what? You find out if there’s a civilian oversight committee. In NYC we have one, but they’re underfunded and continually being legislated against (currently there’s a statute of 18 months from the time of the event within which you have to file charges).

-

-

If the prospect of keeping vigilant about cops scares you, imagine being a POC, and knowing that no matter what you do, you could be railroaded by a system that wants to not only disenfranchise you, but has no intentions of treating you as a human being.

Take your fears and shove ‘em down, because they’ll never be anything when compared to what we face on a daily basis.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT IS SO FUNNY??? THIS POST HAS SEVEN FUCKING NOTES. BECAUSE GIVING WHITE PEOPLE SOME INFORMATION AND TOOLS THAT THEY CAN ACTUALLY USE TO TAKE ACTION AS ALLIES IS NOT WORTH THEM LIKING OR REBLOGGING AND SHARING WITH EACH OTHER. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT! RIGHT? RIGHT? IT’S “FUNNY” CUZ IT’S JUST BLACK AND BROWN LIVES ON THE LINE ANYWAY.

word. we ALL have white followers. but they prefer to reblog jokes or pretty pictures or “universal” (read: non-racial shit) things. let it be a good, useful critique on them and their structures and their fucking bullshit. let it be a word of advice so they can stop being oppressive dicks and *crickets*

we all see you.

But seriously if y’all see some fishy arrests of PoC (or otherwise, for that matter) going down, it’d be great if you could help out as a witness. ’Cause I can vouch personally for the fact that when PoC speak in each others’ favor, it is immediately disregarded as “helping a brother out”.

I have 2,433 followers. The very least you could do is stop and read this.

Watching the police has become such a habit, that I was sort of taken by surprise when my daughters asked me what I was doing the first time they were with me. Why are we still, we should go? They asked. I said…sometimes the police need to know that people are watching them.

We’d been walking down Sherbrooke, and what the hell, I’d forgotten it was May Day. So there was a march, and the riot cops were out in all their insane scary bug-like armour. And you could see them pushing the people in the march who were straggling. My daughters asked why, and I couldn’t help it…the cops were already in earshot, but I said, “Some people feel good when they push other people around I guess.”

It made my daughters really nervous and when I thought about it, I was nervous too. No, I don’t trust that the cops aren’t going to do something that is going to end up with me and my kids getting hurt. I’ve been ‘rounded up’ before, and had the police driver of the van slam on the breaks every couple of seconds so those of us seated in the back would go flying all over the place. I got a nice bruise on the side of my face before they finally stopped and kicked us out because they needed the space for ‘worse rioters’.

But whatever. Watching ‘regular’ police action is more important. When a car screeches up, and two cops get out and they start getting physical with the three boys sitting on a bench, yes, you need to stop and stand there. And yes, it’s scary. Because the ability of police officers to use force and pretty much get away with whatever they want to do IS SCARY. They have that power because it doesn’t get questioned enough.

I sincerely hope you personally have never experienced police brutality. But you can watch it happen pretty much any hour of the day if you open your eyes.

I can`t count the number of times I’ve heard of the police abusing their power, and you know what the number one deterrent is to ever holding them accountable?

Lack of witnesses.

The funny thing is…there are almost always witnesses. Just not ones willing to give witness.

Holy shit, yes! I’m from LA and like, CA (esp. SoCal) is basically occupied by a hostile, militarized police force.

I’ve tried to explain this to people in other places I’ve lived before. It wasn’t uncommon to see someone casually outside some kind of establishment, pleasantly letting people know

“the cops are in there”.

Like…if you KNOW where the cops are at, and you don’t say anything, it’s like. Rude. But there’s always that one person who’s there just watching the cops. Like maybe they’re just in there eating. Who gives a fuck. They’re cops. They don’t need to be on duty and they don’t need a reason.

White people who live in predominantly poc neighborhoods and *don’t* do this aren’t your friends, aren’t your neighbors. I myself have done this even though I’m terrified of cops, and have a host of anxiety related issues, because I’m very light skinned. (I esp. did this in Compton when I was visiting/staying with Black family.)

Like, if there was a downed power line in your neighborhood, are you gonna SAY something or are you gonna let people’s kids ride their bikes all over it? This is a part of being neighborly and a part of your community.

California cops are also pretty awful to disabled people, both PoC and white. Lots have been killed, and when I was in California I had to stop leaving the house alone because (even in mostly-PoC neighborhoods) someone would always call the cops to report someone ‘wandering’, and then the cops would come and all bets were off at that point. I haven’t had that happen in Vermont yet, but I’ve been so traumatized by experiences with cops that every time someone asks me “Are you okay?” in public I run home. Because in California, even saying “yes” didn’t get me out of getting the cops called on me for being outside at the same time as being visibly cognitively disabled. It started when I was maybe 13 or 14? My friend had the same experience starting in adolescence, and I had to tell her that for someone who’s white and presumed female that's not a normal experience, unless you’re disabled. And you don’t even want to hear things I heard cops saying to each other about cognitively and psychiatrically disabled people when they thought I couldn’t hear or that I didn’t matter enough for it to matter if I heard.

Notes: