COPWATCH
American television
audiences have long been accustomed to the celebration of rawkus police action
via the Fox Network's signature exploitation, COPS. And while, for many, the
show is a tell-tale sign of our militarized world, for others, it represents
something far more sinister and far-reaching. Namely, the broad inculcation and
deep internalization of the notion that society cannot exist without the men and
women in blue who patrol the perimeter of our increasingly gated communities. By
carefully omitting coverage of police brutality and corruption, COPS has
succesfully sanitized the image of our urban police forces in ways that few
propagandists could have ever imagined possible.
And so, in the spirit of striking back by reversing the power structure, GNN
presents CopWatch, a journey into the dangerous world of community police
oversight as epitomized by pioneer activists Andrea Pritchett and Jacob
Crawford. Founded in 1990, the Berkeley chapter of CopWatch sought to revitalize
the Sixties-era initiative originally conceived by the Black Panthers. Over the
past twelve years, CopWatch chapters have begun to spring up across the United
States. With the recent high-profile cases of police brutality and fears of a
looming police state, they might be just in time.