Occupy Forum Field Trip: Berkeley Copwatch

OccupyForum will take a field trip to COPWATCH’s Berkeley meeting.

COPWATCH is an activist group dedicated to monitoring police and protecting citizens, whose slogan is: “Refuse to be Abused.” Beginning in 1990, Copwatch ran street patrols to document police harassment of homeless people on Telegraph Avenue. Its newsletter highlighted patterns of intimidation, selective enforcement, misinformation and excessive oversight by police. Over the next decade, Copwatch held hundreds of “Know Your Rights” trainings. Copwatch spearhead demonstrations, filed complaints, used its documents to build court defense,  spoke out at investigative hearings, stood up against pepper spray and other brutal policing techniques (check their website for a full description). They have been a force to be reckoned with on every level to stop systemic police brutality, and a model for organizations in other cities.

We have the good fortune to be invited to their November meeting in Berkeley. This is gonna be deep: they’re discussing what they’ve learned recently, and want to work on regarding the militarization of police, police accountability, training, your rights on the street for yourself and others, how to be a copwatcher, and more:

� Millitarization of police and how to draw that down
� Immediate triage situations: how to behave on the streets / intervention in police stopping people, including African Americans, homeless/veterans, etc.
� Police Accountability
� Police Training
� Copwatcher training, including your rights on the streets
� Longer term strategies for dealing with police violence

In the meantime, you can take a look at “These Streets Are Watching” beforehand to get acquainted with the issues and to formulate questions.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKeM6zWfAjs