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Local Mendocino County Citizen Efforts:

Copwatch

You may wish to visit the websites for CopwatchSanta Rosa Copwatch and Petaluma Copwatch (Humboldt County: Redwood Curtain Copwatch), and consider their suggestionto memorize key phrases such as "AM I BEING DETAINED?" and "I DO NOT CONSENT," as well as their suggestion that if you see a police-civilian encounter, stop, observe, and film the incident.

Filming Police Encounters

Make No Mistake, Filiming the Police is a Dangerous Risk: Although civil rights lawyers believe that filming the police engaged in their public duties is fully legal and constitutionally protected conduct, nevertheless, one who decides to film the police assumes enormous personal risk of harrassment, injury and arrest. Convictions for violating state laws against filming anyone, including the police, without their prior consent have been upheld by some state courts, notably Massachusettes, Illinois and Maryland (see Gizmodo's "Are Cameras the New Guns?").

The police are not often pleased to see anyone video taping them. Numerous police agencies and police unions around the country have raised personal privacy objections, as well as claims of interference and public safety objections to such activity. The libertarian think tank CATO Institute states that the police continue to harass those who record police encounters. You may want to view their video, Cops on Camera.

For an interesting examination Redwood Curtain Copwatchof this debate, listen to National Public Radio's feature pieces: "This is the Police, Put Down Your Camera" (Morning Edition), and "The Rules and Your Rights for Recording Arrests" (Talk of the Nation). From the right, watch former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano's commentary "Who Polices the Police?" on the Fox News Channel. From the left, read the Obama administration's Department of Justice amicus brief in Sharp v. Baltimore City Police Dept, where DOJ firmly states that the "First Amendment protects the recording of police officers performing their duties in public."

Arrests and civil rights law suits testing the fortitutde of the First Amendment are increasingly common in Jake's weekly reports of police excess and abuse posted on this very web page directly below, picked from the National Police Misconduct News Feed on Twitter.

Think First: If you decide to engage this risk, then remember that an effective, useful observer typically maintains a safe and objective distance rather than becoming a distracting, escalating or otherwise subjective participant in the incident.

Information to Collect: If you decide to record or film a Ukiah DUI arrest or any other Mendocino County citizen-police encounter, then get witness statements with names and numbers. Immediately write down as much detail as you remember, including developments prior to filming. Add the names of police agencies, cop names or descriptions, badge & license plate numbers, date, time, and location. Then, in the next 45 days, search the local Mendocino County police agency logs (for example Mendocino County Sheriff, CHP, Ukiah Police Department, etc), and the press and internet, for the arrestee's name and contact information; any offer of film copy, witness statements and other information will likely be met with high praise and gratitude by anyone who believes they were victims of police excess.

Excessive Force & Police Abuse

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"Police officers may nominally be dedicated to serving and protecting. But even the best cop can't guarantee your freedom or your safety, while the worst can threaten both."

-Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Channel


"Naturally, there are good cops and bad cops, just like lawyers, dentists and mechanics, but bad cops are perjurers with guns; they are thieves robbing civil rights and hooligans brutalizing the powerless, just as surely as any outlaw, gangster or domestic terrorist, dismantling democracy with every corrupt transgression."

-Jake


Documented Allegations of Police Excess in DUI, Alcohol, & Driver Arrests


Mendocino County Police Abuse Complaint Forms