Cop Watch: protecting neighborhoods from the police

Click here to access article by Jelle Bruinsma from Reflections on a Revolution.

To protect their neighborhoods against police violence, Cop Watch groups in the U.S. patrol and document police activity, hoping to abate the harassment.

As an introduction Bruinsma writes:

Police brutality and harassment are problems in all modern [capitalist] societies. Those at the lower ends of class and race hierarchies stand a much higher chance of being targeted, brutalized, and ultimately killed by the ‘forces of order’. Irrespective of the country they live in, their neighborhoods are heavily patrolled and can often look like occupied territory. From Italy to the United States, from the Netherlands to Brazil, lives have been destroyed.

But of all western countries, none stands out so much as the United States. 

And in conclusion the author cites some critically important factors in defending communities from police who are controlled by the ruling capitalist class:

One key requirement for the success of any such project, however, is a civil society that cares. Spreading videos of brutalities is making an appeal to the moral consciousness of the viewer. Documenting incidents can help, but has to be supplemented by dedicated organizing by groups across the spectrum.