There was an arrest across the street from my place in Oakland one day – three cop cars with a bullhorn and guns out – and before I could even get out the gate there were a couple people posted up and one of them was filming and another one was narrating in a calm but very loud voice, just
“HE IS COOPERATING! HIS HANDS ARE EMPTY! HE IS DOING WHAT HE IS TOLD TO DO! HE IS HOLDING STILL! HIS HANDS ARE EMPTY! HE IS NOT BEING THREATENING! HE HAS PUT HIS HANDS BEHIND HIS HEAD AS ASKED! HE IS NOT RESISTING!”
and that was something I hadn’t thought to do before. It certainly let the cops know what the narrative of eye witnesses was going to be.
I especially liked “his hands are empty” because this statement would still be true and a witnessed reason the police should not become violent even if it turned out he had a weapon on his person somewhere.
I see people in NYC stop and record a lot. Even if they are just being nosey, that’s still witnesses if shit goes down.
We must be vigilant. The New Solidarity. You might just save a fellow human being.
If you don’t feel comfortable with doing the narrating thing (which really is quite clever), even just standing around and blatantly staring actually legit helps immensely.
There are studies that show that even an image of someone looking can be effective to change people’s behaviours.
Sidenote: If you see a cop stopping an Indigenous person, the same protocol applies.
I did this in a parking lot when I saw a group of Black men and teens being harassed by a cop. Stayed in my car, but whipped out my phone and started to record, pointing out via narrative when I could hear the cop contradicting himself and changing his story. At the eight-minute mark, when I knew he was past the reasonable-stop guideline time (thanks, legal tips side of tumblr!), I flipped on my dome light.
Fam, what happened next was INCREDIBLE.
The cop had been gesturing in a wild way, almost flailing, like he was actively trying to get these guys agitated. He saw my dome light, saw a white face with a phone, and suddenly his hands came to rest on his vest. Within 90 seconds he’d packed his shit up and gone.
The most outspoken gentleman in the group came up to me and went “whatchu doing in there?” So I straight-up told him “it looked like you were being harassed, so I was recording.” The whole group recognized someone who was on their side, and started venting about the shit that had just gone down.
Turns out the asshole had had them stopped for a good five minutes before I pulled in. That means they were stopped, with no probable cause and a cop changing his story no fewer than three times, for AT LEAST THIRTEEN MINUTES. While chatting in a parking lot. One car had pulled in next to another that turned out to belong to one of his buddies and they were just shooting the shit when Officer Bacon came by.
Want to know the kicker here? One of the cop’s stories was that a group “matching their description” had been reported by the grocery store security guy for shoplifting. Black man, red shirt with a sports logo, jeans. Know what this convenient report didn’t mention?
HIS HEIGHT.
This guy was, without exaggeration, at least 6’10”. I assure you any report of him would have mentioned his height FIRST. And you’d best believe I pointed that out in my narration.
Cops WILL try shit. You CAN stop them. I did it and it was as simple as having some patience and a camera.
Same for muslims!
Look out for your fellow marginalized people!
If you can live broadcast the video to a trusted friend of send a live backup of the video to a private cloud storage: even better! Cops can and do seize phones to destroy evidence. But it’s better not to start a public livestream and not to share the recorded video online without the consent of the person you are recording / have recorded. It is not up to you to decide how public someone’s experience of police harassment gets. If you can: approach the person after the harassment and offer the video to them so they can decide what to do with it and possibly use it in court.
Cops are enemies of all living things, obviously in USA Black, Brown, and Native peoples are the most visible targets, but anyone can be a victim. Whiteness helps but can’t save you if you’re clearly mad, queer, trans, a drug user, or sex worker.
We keep us safe. That means any time we see police stopping people, we watch them. Who watches the watchmen? We do. We’re going to hit back one day but for now we must break the shackles of fear with the strength of our solidarity.
