06/02/2026
Before 2020, I was a heavy watcher of first amendment audits and other videos of police interactions. The distinctions between the varieties weren't so clear to me then as they are now. So let's look at some of the different contexts here!
1) Copwatching: This is the historical root. The practice is a component of community defense programs founded by organizations like the Black Panther Party and other groups of targeted communities in the 1960s. Obviously, video documentation was not accessible to most, and these efforts were protected not by cameras, but armed solidarity. Reagan, as republican governor of California, advanced gun control legislation specifically to restrict the rights of Black and Brown people.
2) First Amendment Audits: These are content made with a structure, oftentimes confrontational. Usually, a publicly owned/contracted space will be documented and somebody will take issue with this and call management, security and/or the police. These take place in publicly accessible areas, or in semi-private spaces like parking lots full of cop cars which lack legally enforceable restrictions from people.
The legal landscape has changed significantly since the original BPP copwatch programs. These videos can really help to educate oneself on which precedents exist to protect our rights. And they can teach us how police operate and illustrate the role of personal feelings in how police exercise their power. Not all cops are equally dumb, it's a spectrum of dipsh*ttery. Some of them see a camera and act professional, even friendly. Sometimes, they even educate government employees about the rights of citizens.
Sometimes the police attack, because the profession is a magnet for bullies, and the rest are "just" complicit. There is an innate culture *against* accountability, and they will kill to protect it. Therefore, a good auditor can overcome this through civil litigation after things go wrong.
One important externality of this is that it helps to carve out space for the belligerent and undesirable in society, because the fact is that we all *do* have a right to receive government services in dignity. "Ugly laws" have codified the exclusion of people in the past, just like loitering and trespassing laws are weaponized still today.
3) Body Cam: This is a unique perspective, acquired through transparency laws like the freedom of information act (FOIA). Obviously, police and other agencies will obstruct access to information through redactions, fees, and good old deception. Chicago PD, for example, withheld footage for over a year regarding their murder of Michael McDonald, in contravention to internal policy. This is why citizen oversight boards are made to be toothless and essentially a mechanism of cooptation from real accountability.
I remember when bodycam tech was initially being pitched. It is sold as an accountability measure, but the real effect has been only to extend the surveillance state against the rest of us.
4) Personal Record: This is the primary method of documentation that I personally utilize with regard to police. By livestreaming police interactions, we can introduce accountability into the power imbalance. These types of video are compelling because they wouldn't exist outside of police aggression and overreach. By documenting the pretextual stops that are intended to supercede our constitutional protections, we can see what cops actually spend their time doing.
We can see clearly how police do NOTHING useful that couldn't be done better by someone else, without a license to kill.
5) Bystanders: This is your invitation to stand in solidarity with our neighbors and compañeros. Without bystander footage, Derek Chauvin would have never been brought to justice. Without bystander footage, ICE wouldn't have even minimal accountability (which they still don't, apart from a couple individual instances). Alex Pretti was killed for being a good Samaritan, filming and lifting a woman from the ground after being assaulted by federal agents. After they stripped him of his legal firearm, they shot him in the back.
Unlike law enforcement, we want safety and accountability in our neighborhoods. When we use our phone at traffic stops, we preserve our rights more effectively. Body cams and ani-mask laws do more to legitimize a monopoly on violence, as long as we don't control that footage or have accountability for prosecutors who protect state violence (e.g. Ismael Ozanne and his favorite killer cop, Matt Kenny, in Dane County). 1A auditors are oftentimes annoying, but they have normalized core practices of filming the cops, as well as demonstrating how to prevent oneself from being identified and documented into their Palantir databases. Copwatching doesn't require expensive equipment, a $40 smartphone can help.
Soon, I will be recording essays on my YouTube channel Brett and Some Books about the history of Copwatching and how you can collaborate in your community. If you want to engage in Copwatching, take some time to learn the finer points of the law, and understand chain of custody as well as how to document deliberately, because it is counterproductive to document dissidents instead of police. You aren't Copwatching to bolster their body of evidence, and if you are uncertain about that, then you are not operating with the implicit consent of comrades. Maybe stay home and fund legal support or something.
We keep us safe!
https://open.substack.com/pub/acabdistro/p/varying-genres-of-police-accountability?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7dpddw
