The Police Accountability Tour

These Streets Are Watching .

The Police Accountability Tour, on the road from mid-August until December, will maximize police accountability by facilitating connections and collaboration among those who know that badges don’t grant extra rights, and through skill sharing and the capturing and dissemination of relevant content.

This tour will help further connect individuals involved with Cop Block, Cop Watch, and Peaceful Streets groups as well as all police-watching groups and people around the world, so we can together have a bigger impact free from institutionalized violence.

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Help Fuel the Tour!

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>>click here for details about tour-related expenses<<

via Bitcoin: 1Hy8xL2ey3GwFLTEd3NTS76A3bWMnQ2dRP
via debit or credit card: WePay.com/donate/PATour2013
or get gear: CopBlock.org/Store

Donate to fuel The Police Accountability Tour!

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The Team

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Jacob Crawford
Jacob Crawford is a long time Copwatcher based out of the Bay Area in California. He joined Berkeley Copwatch in 2000 and produced the first ever “in the streets” non-dramatized know your rights video, These Streets Are Watching. He has been a contributor for Copblock for several years and currently is running WeCopwatch.org with other Copwatchers.

Pete Eyre
Pete Eyre is co-founder of CopBlock.org. He went to undergrad and grad school for law enforcement, then spent time in DC as an intern at the Cato Institute, a Koch Fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, Directer of Campus Outreach at the Institute for Humane Studies, Crasher-in-Chief at Bureaucrash, and as a contractor for the Future of Freedom Foundation. He later hit the road as co-founder of the Motorhome Diaries and Liberty On Tour and now calls Keene, in the ‘shire his homebase.

 

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AUSTIN, TEXAS  Aug 15-20     -     NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK  Aug 21-25     -     CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA  Aug 26-Oct 10

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA  Oct 11-19     -     DENVER, COLORADO  Oct 20-26     -     DETROIT, MICHIGAN  Oct 27-Nov 01

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS  Nov 02-10     -     ATLANTA, GEORGIA  Nov 11-17     -     NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA  Nov 18-24

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NOTE THAT LOGISTICS ARE STILL BEING IRONED-OUT.
AS VENUES AND OTHER INFO FOR EACH STOP ARE NAILED-DOWN THAT INFORMATION WILL BE ADDED BELOW.
THANKS TO EVERYONE HELPING WITH THOSE COMPONENTS!

Follow the Tour

While on the move we’ll utilize a variety of outlets to share updates and content, and to get in touch with people in each area.

• On Twitter - http://Twitter.com/PATour & http://Twitter.com/CopBlock Follow us to receive timely text-based updates, connect with us if we’re in your area, and to share suggestions
• On CopBlock.org - http://www.copblock.org/tag/policeaccountabilitytour All content we post to Cop Block will include the tag “policeaccountabilitytour”
• On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQKn6VyrLIpekRhC_sqm5xU2dCLiiJAzd Video content we post will be added to the “Police Accountability Tour” playlist housed at YouTube.com/TheCopBlock

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AUSTIN, TEXAS

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Date: August 15-20, 2013
Metro Population: 1,834,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: covered
Activities:

• Saturday, Aug. 17th, 10am-4pm 2nd Annual Peaceful Streets Summit https://www.facebook.com/events/465581550193801
• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Cop Watch - El Paso, TX - Facebook
Dallas Cop Block -Facebook / YouTube / [email protected]
Houston Free Thinkers - Facebook
Peaceful Streets Project – Austin – website / Facebook / [email protected]
Peaceful Streets Project - Houston - Facebook
Texas Cop Block – Facebook / [email protected]
White Settlement Cop Block – Facebook

Content tagged “Austin” at CopBlock.org

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK

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Date: August 21-25, 2013
Metro Population: 18,900,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: covered
Activities:

• Wed., Oct 21st, evening know your rights presentation, Manhattan details TBA
• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Cop Block Long Island – Facebook
Cop Block Suffolk NY – Facebook
Harlem Cop Watch – website / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / [email protected]
Peaceful Streets Project NYC – Facebook / website

Content tagged “New York City” at CopBlock.org

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CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

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Date: August 26-October 10, 2013
Metro Population: 3,740,000
Crash Space: arranging - will soon be covered
Logistic Needs: lots of on-the-ground contacts/interviews, we should be good on venues too
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Johannesburg Cop Watch - Facebook

Our third stop will be Cape Town, South Africa. We will spend six weeks interviewing and interacting with individuals from all walks of life, including both those who staff prisons and those caged.

Jacob has been requested to provide a visual to a book written by a prisoner named Bernard Mitchell, a former general in the Numbers Gang. The book outline’s Mitchell’s experiences under apartheid rule. We hope this documentation will help us all better understand what has taken it’s place in the form of state coercion and draw parallels to the Jim Crow era and its lasting vestiges. We anticipate having enough content to show how oppression is a staple component of any government where police and prisons are utilized to control populations.

Content tagged “Cape Town” at CopBlock.org

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OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

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Date: October 11-19, 2013
Metro Population: 4,340,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: covered
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Berkeley Cop Watch – Facebook
California Cop Block – Facebook
Southbay Cop Block – Facebook
Vallejo Copwatch – website

Our fourth stop will take is to Oakland, CA, birthplace of the Black Panther Party, a group that in the height of the Vietnam war, was designated by FBI as the biggest national security threat. We will be interviewing elder panthers about their armed police patrols, as well as their thoughts on the current conditions with Oakland police employees.

We will be interviewing Berkeley Copwatch, the first copwatch group which formed in March of 1990, and had been conducting proactive police patrols since, helping pave the way for copwatch like groups across the country and world.

We will be interviewing the Black Riderz Party who in the spirit of the BPP are conducting police patrols on Oakland with the intention of diffusing situations, but also intervening when they witness police abuse.

Oakland has been the battleground for police accountability in recent years. The videotaped murder of Oscar Grant in 2009 by Johannes Mehserle, an employee of the Bay Area Rapid Transit police set of a series of rebellions that would put police abuse in national dialogue, and would embolden people of all demographics to videotape the police when they stopped members of the public.

Occupy Oakland would fall on the tail of the Oscar Grant movement, (need to elaborate)

Several screenings of documentaries produced by Jacob Crawford will be aired, from collaborations with the National Lawyers Guild. These documentaries highlight the heavy-handed tactics used by some police employees during the Oscar Grant Movement as well as Occupy Oakland and demonstrate how copwatchers can take their knowledge and experience to the next level when they coordinate with legal experts around incidents of abuse.

Content tagged “Oakland” at CopBlock.org

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DENVER, COLORADO

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Date: October 20-26, 2013
Metro Population: 2,650,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: covered
Activities:

• Monday, Oct. 21, evening informal cocktail meet-and-greet, 3 Margaritas, 6884 S Clinton Ct, Greenwood Village, CO details TBA
• Tuesday, Oct. 22, know your rights convo with highschoolers over pizza, details TBA
• Wednesday, Oct. 23 event in Boulder, details TBA
• Thursday, Oct. 24, sit down dinner, 3 Margaritas, 6884 S Clinton Ct, Greenwood Village, CO, details TBA
• Friday, Oct. 25, get-together, Choppers, 80 S. Madison St., Cherry Creek, Denver, Colorado, 80209 details TBA
• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

CopBlock Colorado – Facebook
Denver Cop Block – Facebook
Rangely Cop Block – website / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / [email protected]
West Denver Cop Watch – website / (720) 369-2741 / [email protected]

Denver is our fifth stop. Jacob and Pete are both really excited to return. Jacob included content he captured there in his 2003 documentary These Streets Are Watching. Pete passed through a few times when on the road with Motorhome Diaries in 2009 and Liberty On Tour in 2010. Both have continued to cultivate relationships from afar, and believe there’s a lot of potential from simply just getting these like-minded doers together.

Obviously the live-and-let-live attitude toward cannabis now prevalent in the area differs from the policy said to be “allowable”, as dictated by some strangers in DC. That divergence and its impact on crime, and for entrepreneurs, police employees and jail staff, and others, will be investigated.

Content tagged “Denver” at CopBlock.org

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DETROIT, MICHIGAN

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Date: October 27-Nov 01, 2013
Metro Population: 3,750,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: we should be good - venues and events are coming together, stay tuned!
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Dearborn Cop Block – Facebook
Jackson Cop Block – Facebook / [email protected]
Metro Detroit Cop Block – Facebook
Michigan Cop Block – Facebook

Our sixth stop is Detroit, Michigan, which for many, serves for many as a harbinger of what is likely to unfold in other cities and towns across the states. The massive misallocation of resources and hindrances to peaceful interactions has led to an economic deterioration. Cuts to government “services” mean the number of police personnel has been cut 40% in the last decade, many police facilities are closed 16hrs a day, and the Detroit Police Officers Association was telling folks to “enter Detroit at your own risk.” But that has left much room for entrepreneurs to step-up and communities to unite.

Pete has been itching to return to Detroit after his last visit there in early 2013, where he captured the video Dale Brown of Detroit-based Threat Management Center is On-Point. That, and other bottom-up solutions will provide much to learn from and share.

We will hit the streets with area Copblockers and Copwatchers, who, in the past, have expressed trepidation to do so due to the heavy-handed tactics employed by some Detroit police personnel. There is strength in numbers, especially when coupled with the lens of multiple cameras.

Content tagged “Detroit” at CopBlock.org

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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

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Date: November 02-10, 2013
Metro Population: 9,730,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: good on-the-ground contacts but if you have leads for venues that’d be appreciated
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Cop Block – Chicago – Facebook
South Suburban Cop Block – Facebook
Southern Illinois Cop Block – Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Scribd / gplus.to / [email protected]
NW Indiana Copblock – Facebook (also http://nw.copblock.in)
Milwaukee Cop Block – Facebook
Wisconsin Cop Block – Facebook

Chicago - called the “Windy City” due to the volume of bs peddled by politicians - is the seventh stop of the Police Accountability Tour. There’s obviously not a lack of stories that can be followed-up on.

The town last summer served as one of the latest scene of the security theater during the NATO Summit. The thousands of paramilitary-clad individuals not only wasted resources but were in fact the very opposite of what’s needed for a real safe community.

Another reason Chicago - or really any place in Illinois was chosen - was to make clear that inhabitants have the right to film the police. Not too long ago a man named Michael Allison was threatened with 75-years in a cage for recording public officials. An appeals court eventually sided with Allison, and the united states supreme court recently refused to grant cert (thus agreeing with the lower courts ruling). Still, many in Illinois are hesitant to film the police, so we will coordinate a know-your-rights event and get as many people as possible to record - something that is critical if accountability is to be had.

Content tagged “Chicago” at CopBlock.org

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA

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Date: November 11-17, 2013
Metro Population: 5,460,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: good on-the-ground contacts but if you have leads for venues that’d be appreciated
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

East Atlanta Cop Watch – website / (678) 390-0393
Georgia Cop Block – website / Facebook / Twitter / [email protected]
Southeast Georgia Cop Block – Facebook

Atlanta - called by some the “capital of the south” - is the eight stop of the Police Accountability Tour.

Content tagged “Atlanta” at CopBlock.org

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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

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Date: November 18-24, 2013
Metro Population: 1,170,000
Crash Space: covered
Logistic Needs: good on-the-ground contacts but if you have leads for venues that’d be appreciated
Activities:

• interviews/shadowing/on the street with doers from the area
• others TBA

Known Area Groups:

Louisiana Cop Block – website / Facebook / Twitter / [email protected]

New Orleans is the ninth and final stop of the Police Accountability Tour.

Content tagged “New Orleans” at CopBlock.org

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This page is under construction If you have ideas and suggestions on what to pursue please let us know: [email protected]

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Note that this page (CopBlock.org/Tour) formerly housed content related to The Cop Block Tour, which kicked-off from Keene, NH in mid-January, 2013 and ended five weeks and 4,400-miles later at the Liberty Forum in Nashua, NH. That content has been migrated to CopBlock.org/TheCopBlockTour

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