Below is the corporate media article (fair use copyrighted by the Post). Before that is Copwatcher's commentary (public domain).

Mokwa() is full of s--- when he says he doesn't mind the cameras. In real life, cops are scared of any recording device. Even if the cop isn't the one committing the recorded crime, the cops hate the recording devices. Once I took a photo of a criminal who tried to assault me with a chain. When I called the police, the guy on the phone (who assuemed the criminal was Black even though the criminal was actually white) said to bring it to the station. When I took the photo to the Sublette office near the mental hospital (the inmates at the mental hospital are a lot saner than the cops!), the cops didn't even look at the photo, and they said _I_ was "disturbing the peace" by taking the photo. Didn't see the person who claimed I was disturbing the peace; I had explained the situation to a Black lady who went to a back room and relayed the info between us.

We should carry recording devices whenever possible. If you don't have a camcorder, at least have an audio tape recorder. I don't like cell phones, but the camera feature might be useful in documenting bad behavior.

Of course cops will try to raid and destroy evidence, so upload it online, email it to friends, etc.

The police cars and police stations have cameras, but of course they destroy that evidence if the cops are on the wrong side. I was on a jury in which a cop assaulted an elderly Black man in a room with a camera. The lying cop said the man was attacking him and that he (the cop) feared for his life. Had the man actually attacked the cop, they would have used the camera footage.

Sometimes the cops' cameras show the cop is correct, for example when they shot the bipolar woman in Wildwood about a month ago.

Cops will continue to abuse people even if they know they're being recorded. However, the recordings will get more people to support the inevitable riots that will occur when all-white juries acquit the cops (as long as the rioters are smart and don't engage in self-destruction, instead targeting deserving targets including but not limited to the Washington Ave lofts, the rehab area around Tower Grove, the rich CWE areas, St. Louis Hills (home of the families of many a cop), and of course Wash U).

The New Orleans incident this fall shows how cops hate cameras. When a gang of white cops brutally assaulted a sober, elderly Black man who wasn't doing anything wrong, a man filming the incident was verbally assaulted by one of the white cops.


ACLU will provide cameras to tape police
By Jeremy Kohler
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/31/2005

St. Louis police officers often say they feel as if people are looking over their shoulders.

That feeling isn't likely to let up this year.

The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, a frequent critic of the city police, says it plans to arm residents of the city's north side with video cameras to record officers' dealings with the public.

The activist group says the department often mistreats and unfairly targets blacks and said it hopes the presence of cameras will act as a deterrent to police abuse and result in smoother dealings between residents and police.

The group said the cameras will start rolling in the summer, after a series of workshops near Fairground Park where blacks can learn about how to protect their rights during dealings with police. The program is called the Racial Justice Initiative.

ACLU leaders notified Police Chief Joe Mokwa of its plans in meetings during the fall. Neither the ACLU nor the police knew of any other previous effort nationally to put officers under private surveillance.

The department has responded with a shrug. While some commanders are leery of having their officers taped, Mokwa said, "It's legal and there is nothing wrong with it."

Sgt. Kevin Ahlbrand, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, said: "We don't expect any negative reports to come out of videotaping. Our members are under the assumption that in today's society, they should assume that any time they're in public, they may be being videotaped."

Redditt Hudson, who heads the ACLU's racial justice program, said, "It's not like we needed their clearance."

Mokwa said his officers are used to hearing criticism. On Dec. 22, the chief said, he rushed to Barnes-Jewish Hospital to visit a rookie officer who had been just been shot in the neck.

Mokwa said the first words of the officer, Matthew Greco, were, "I didn't do anything wrong."

But Brenda Jones, the ACLU chapter's executive director, said some criticism of police is warranted.

"People are being stopped by the police for no particular reason," she said. "A number who have run-ins have attempted to file complaints but haven't been able to get to internal affairs."

The group wants to lessen the "tension and potential for violence that has occurred with police patrolling some of the poor neighborhoods in the city," she said.

Mokwa said he hopes the amateur cameramen don't interfere with officers or bait them with bogus calls. He said he disagrees with the premise of the action - he feels most people are happy with his officers' service.

The ACLU only hears from the small percentage of people who feel they have been wronged by police, he said.

He said he thinks most people want police officers to be aggressive in dealing with troublemakers in their neighborhoods.

Mokwa said he hopes the tapes depict officers acting professionally. If the videos expose problems, he said, "we'd want to know about those anyway."