Access to data about policing has become the subject of increased advocacy and police misconduct data has become increasingly available in the United States, leading to a growing cottage industry that has arisen around collecting, analyzing, and publicizing information about policing. Unfortunately, these efforts are often disconnected from organizing aimed at effecting change by reducing and eliminating police profiling, violence and criminalization. 

In an attempt to address these issues and discuss the potential benefits and harms of collecting and disseminating policing data, WITNESS co-hosted a 4-day online convening in collaboration with the Invisible Institute and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Full Disclosure Project in November 2021.

The event brought together grassroots organizers, advocates, data scientists, journalists, lawyers, advocates and funders. The full report from our convening is now available and aims to share the key principles, tensions and practices that we discussed; help guide ongoing conversations and development of best practices; and inform future project planning and funding decisions. 

Some of the key themes that emerged from our conversations include: 

• The importance of protecting privacy, agency and humanity of people whose experiences of policing are reflected in the data, and offer prevention tools and material support.
• Involve those who are most directly impacted by policing in the data collection, analysis and dissemination process. 
• There is no “objective” data.
• Decisions about which data to collect and how to describe and publicize it are subjective and political.
• Institutions and organizations with greater access to data must commit to making the information available and sharing it with directly impacted communities.

This convening builds off WITNESS projects and collaborations with groups like El Grito and Berkeley Copwatch in which we have co-created resources and guidance to support grassroots organizations in collecting, organizing and analyzing videos and data about the police. In 2018, we also co-hosted a convening in Chicago with the Invisible Institute to cover similar topics. Learn more about this work, the convenings and our partners here.  

CORAL is an initiative that spans the continent and seeks to share tools to strengthen community communication, with emphasis on the use of audiovisuals for the defense of the territory and the telling of their own  narratives. From September to December 2022, CORAL held the 1st Latin American School of Communication for Land Defense, in which the closing modules took place in Paraty, Brazil and Mexico city, Mexico. After the gatherings CORAL network has grown significantly to include the participants of this first school. Find more about this initiative in https://redcoral.la 

After seeing the violent response of the Peruvian government to the mobilizations that started on December 7th, the CORAL network released the following statement. Laboratorio Popular de Medios Libres and WITNESS have also joined forces in an open call for video evidence of human rights violations using an autonomous server, and working together with other members of CORAL, such as Maizal and Radio Kurruf, to create an archive that can preserve multimedia coming from Peru. More about this initiative here.

Read this statement in Portuguese and in Spanish.

To the independent, free, community, alternative media at Abya Yala  and beyond,

To international civil society,

To the governments and international organizations that are meant to protect and guarantee human rights,

We the undersigned, as representatives of community and alternative media, members of Indigenous and afro-descendant peoples, communities, and organizations of our Abya Yala continent, denounce the serious social and political situation that the Republic of Peru is experiencing, as a result of the legislative coup that has broken the rule of law in that sister nation.

We strongly reject the repressive use of the police and military forces that have murdered 39 protesters in 35 days, since December 7th, 2022, with direct shots to the body during the demonstrations and/or using snipers. In total, the number of deaths from the current social protests amounts to 47 people and hundreds of people injured.

Despite reaching office democratically, since the beginning of President Castillo’s administration in July 2021, the Peruvian congress has been characterized by a racist, classist and violent vision and narratives, and put forth a fierce fight for Castillo’s dismissal. The congress has dedicated itself solely to block the work of the executive branch, which has prolonged the stagnation of the State and the country. Six presidents in four years demonstrate the political instability that obviously generates discomfort in Peruvian society.

We express our concern about the tepid role of international bodies; the UN and OAS, that are already per se delegitimized, reiterate their position at the service of the interests of local oligarchies and international corporations to prevail over the needs of the population in general.

As independent communication media and collectives, we stand by the generalized rejection against  the media concentration that exists in Peru, where the radioelectric space is monopolized by a handful of companies that use it to spread a racist, classist and patriarchal narrative that confuses and polarizes public opinion.

We denounce that the state of national emergency, decreed by who currently usurps the presidency of Peru, is an open letter for the violation of all human rights, a history sadly repeated in the territories of our Abya Yala where repression gave rise to barbarism; a situation which we deeply regret again in Peru.

We urge the national and international actors involved to channel mechanisms for the restoration of constitutional order and respect for human rights in Peru.

We call on governments, institutions, international bodies and civil society throughout the continent to ensure that the Peruvian State respects and acts in accordance with the principles that govern human life on the planet; peace and respect for life, self-determination and autonomy of the peoples.

We invite the various free, popular and community communication groups to articulate in the dissemination and denunciation of human rights violations against the Peruvian people and their just demands.

From all Latin America we send our solidarity and support to the sisters and brothers of Peru. We are peoples of peace weaving the word to communicate the defense and care of life and territories.

Abya Yala, January 11, 2023.

For over 30 years, Berkeley Copwatch has been filming police misconduct and serving as a hub for people to gain valuable Know Your Rights information and report abuses by law enforcement. As a volunteer-led group that represents a broad range of ages, abilities, LGBTQ folxs, unhoused individuals, students and local organizers, they have been instrumental in  collecting footage and documentation to support legal, advocacy and policy initiatives. Their work has also helped create a rich record of community-led initiatives around issues like gentrification, racism and abusive policing against vulnerable populations like the unhoused community and people living with mental health issues.

Given the challenges of maintaining decades of sensitive footage in an all volunteer-run organization, WITNESS engaged in this collaboration with the objective of identifying ways to streamline their workflows, develop important protocols and policies for users, and strengthen their platforms for collecting, organizing and analyzing data in ways that make the information more useful to individuals, lawyers, journalists and advocates. While the Database is not intended to be put online or made public because of privacy and security issues, it serves as an internal resource for the group, and the information will be used for organizing purposes and shared with trusted sources and community members upon request. 

Already this work has supported Berkeley Copwatch to influence policy discussions of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission by working with various commissioners to show them footage of police use of spit hoods and the police role in mental health emergencies. They also shed light on the misconduct of UC Berkeley Officer Sean Aranas, who abused homeless people for years, by curating footage of many separate incidents of his gross misconduct. He “retired” within two months of the release of their footage and campaign. 

Through our many hours of planning, building, testing, tinkering and practicing, we’ve gained many learnings that we are eager to share with other human rights documentation groups. We’ve made available a Planning Workbook, a FileMaker Pro Template, Data Diagrams, a customizable Data Dictionary and Controlled Vocabulary. Learn more about the project and download the resources here. 

This project builds on our previous human rights database initiative Profiling the Police, a collaboration with El Grito de Sunset Park, and furthers our quest to identify simple, low-cost solutions for human rights defenders working to analyze, share and preserve video for advocacy and evidentiary purposes.

Nine people were killed and 12 others were injured during a police operation in the Paraisópolis favela in São Paulo, Brazil, on December 1st.

While state governor João Dória originally defended the police’s actions and denied any responsibility for the violence, the images captured by eyewitnesses and shared on social media have since forced him to change his story, saying three days later that he was “very shocked” by the videos and that he’s ordered a review of police protocols for the use of force. 

The massacre happened when police arrived to disrupt a “baile funk” party where 5,000 people were celebrating favela funk music culture. Although the police originally claimed that local gangs were to blame for the deaths, local residents said the officers arrived with extreme violence and deliberately entrapped the people trying to flee. Horrifying videos showed police beating young people as they tried to run away, later being cornered and corralled into a narrow alleyway where some were trampled to death. The victims were between the ages of 14-23.

After the killings, investigative news agency Ponte launched a campaign focused on cellphones as a tool for self-defense, encouraging the public to share any videos of police violence — sharing WITNESS guidance on how to film safely and effectively.

The governor’s feigned “shock” is almost as outrageous as his claim that the Paraisópolis massacre was an “isolated” flaw unrelated to “routine” behavior by police. Brazilian police are among the most lethal in the world with official statistics breaking records year after year. In São Paulo, the number of those killed by police in 2019 so far is 12% higher than last year and, in Rio, official numbers show the highest number ever recorded, with 1546 people killed by police in the first 10 months of the year alone.

The majority of those killed by police are young, black residents of the country’s favelas and urban peripheries, where often the most significant presence of the state comes in the form of heavily armed police officers and military tanks, instead of schools or hospitals. When these killings happen, predominant narratives reinforce the country’s legacy of racism, and victims are often presumed guilty by default.

But video is helping change that, capturing evidence from the point of view of the community and not allowing these stories to be further misrepresented or denied. WITNESS remains committed to standing alongside the courageous activists and favela media groups that are rising up to confront and end state-sponsored violence in their communities. In the current climate of elected politicians like Bolsonaro and Witzel, we also reaffirm our commitment to fighting for the Right to Record.   

Follow WITNESS Brasil on Facebook and Twitter for more on how video is helping communities expose and confront the legacy of police violence in favelas.

Trust is more important now than ever before. This spring 2019, WITNESS is changing the story. We will highlight the people and communities that fuel our movement, and show that without trust, in our partnerships and for human rights content, there can be no justice.

Cheryl Morris, Community Team @ VIMEO and WITNESS volunteer, reflected on “who can we trust?” As noted in Cheryl’s blog post:

“I am a young, black, first generation American woman from New York City. Following the indictment of George Zimmerman and the murders of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley by the police, I began to feel extremely weary of authority figures and fearful of any potential interactions between my family and friends with the police. When walking through the city, I found myself anxiously crossing the street whenever I saw an officer, my heart racing and palms sweating. It seemed as if anything people of color did could be construed by the police as dangerous…

My growing anxiety over the documented cases of police violence however, led me to become more involved with the community of grassroots activists here in New York. I found local rallies and demonstrations through the Black Lives Matter movement to take part in, in hopes of effecting some change within our country. I began to speak candidly with friends and acquaintances about the fears that myself and many people who look like me feel on a regular basis. I wanted to make sure that future generations of black and brown people would not have to worry about their safety in the way that my generation and generations before me had. Through these activities, I learned that I had people around me that I could lean on when I felt overwhelmed. Through my community I learned that I didn’t have to live in fear every day. Over the past few years, I’ve grown to learn that I could trust the community that I had built around myself — friends, progressive-thinking people of color, and allies.”

For Mother’s Day 2019, we also created a fundraising campaign to encourage individuals to donate $25 in their mother’s name. With a small donation of $25, WITNESS can help many more activists, human rights defenders, and vulnerable people to defend their human rights online and on the ground. 

WITNESS is building a movement based on trust, truth, and transparency – will you join us? Learn more about and donate to the campaign here.

This project, launched in 2018, covers the work of WITNESS and El Grito de Sunset Park — a community organization in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — to find new ways to use eyewitness video and open source data to expose abuses by some NYPD and begin to illustrate how police abuse is part of a larger systemic problem. The project serves as a case study for advocates, journalists, legal experts and technologists interested in exploring new forms of storytelling through the analysis and curation of human rights videos.

You can learn more about our “Profiling the Police” project here. Watch the project’s promotional video below.

This law makes records of police misconduct unavailable to the public. As highlighted in our Profiling the Police project, “The law now gives officers a blanket shield from public disclosure or accountability and unfairly puts the burden on the community to expose abuses and push for accountability.”

According to the letter sent to New York state lawmakers, “Full repeal of 50-a is the only way to guarantee an end to officially sanctioned secrecy for police misconduct and the systemic lack of discipline and accountability for misconduct. The public should have the right to know how police departments respond when officers engage in misconduct.”

The full letter is available here.

photo credit: Adrian Owen/Flickr

Crime & Punishment, winner of Sundance’s special jury award for social impact and executive produced by Laura Poitras, tells the story of the NYPD12, a group of officers suing the department over instituting arrest and summons quotas that target black and brown communities. The film touches on a number of the issues raised in our new Profiling the Police project, including lack of transparency and systemic abuse in the NYPD.

The screening will be followed by a panel conversation featuring Bianca Tylek (Corrections Accountability Project), Albert Saint Jean (Black Alliance for Just Immigration) and Sgt. Edwin Raymond (member of NYPD12). Find more details and RSVP for the event here.

If you can’t make the film on the 23rd, a brief theatrical run begins at the IFC on Aug 24.

Now, it will become easier for people, particularly racists to call the police over what they deem “suspicious activity.” Thanks to an app called the App Task Force, people can now “help police agencies reduce criminal activity and improve community policing in their jurisdiction.” According to the app’s “about” section, citizens who have no police training can “download the app and use it to report suspicious and potentially criminal activity … in real time.”

While apps like App Task Force vow that they will let citizens expose criminal behavior, we at WITNESS think that this will only lead to more racial profiling and unfair arrests. In this extremely toxic political climate where white officers mistreat people of color, apps like these aren’t helping create more transparency and accountability for the police, in fact, they’re doing the opposite.

Read what our U.S. Program Manager Jackie Zammuto had to say to The Outline about how the intersection of policing and technology can be problematic here.

WITNESS and El Grito de Sunset Park studied over 300 videos from El Grito’s collection of eyewitness videos depicting police misconduct and abuse spanning a dozen years. Sunset Park is a largely Latinx and Asian neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. Going beyond headline-grabbing instances of police violence, “Profiling the Police” aims to expose the day-to-day pressure, surveillance and harassment that residents in heavily-policed neighborhoods—most often people of color—like Sunset Park face on a regular basis.  

We set out to address specific challenges that El Grito faced in managing and making use of their collection of media. But we knew that these and other challenges are faced by many police accountability groups around the United States and the world. Additional problems we explored: supporting sustainable, community-led archives and preservation of police abuse accounts;  working towards metadata standards that would make it easier for video collections to be compared datasets in advocacy and reporting.

Lastly, civil rights law in New York and other states make it extremely difficult to access police officer personnel records for reports of misconduct or disciplinary action. While the burden of exposing abuse should not disproportionally rest on communities directly affected by it, collections like those held by El Grito are an important part of bringing greater transparency around misconduct. 

“Profiling the Police” would not have been possible without the support of our advisors which include:

• Benetech
• Berkeley Copwatch
• Digital Verification Corps.
• Dignity and Power Now!
• El Grito de Sunset Park
• Engine Room
• Human Rights Analysis Group (HRDAG)
• HURIDOCS
• Interference Archive
• Invisible Institute
• Karen Stevenson, Metropolitan Interactive
• Legal Aid Society
• Lucy Parsons Labs
• Open Police Complaints
• Robin Koning, Archivist
• Robin Margolis, Audiovisual Archivist
• Security Force Monitor
• Syrian Archive

For more on the project, click here.