Copwatch Page #4

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It is our duty

to fight for our freedom.

It is our duty

to fight for our freedom.

- It is our duty to win.

- It is our duty to win.

We must love and support each other.

We must love and support each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Dennis is driven to the nearest

police station for processing.

But just two hours later,

he's released on bail.

Look what they gave me.

They locked me up,

kept me in there for an hour,

and they gave me a ticket

for disorderly conduct,

'cause they claim that

I was crossing the street

when there was a red light.

Luckily for me,

I videotaped the entire thing.

As I crossed the street,

I made sure I documented

the traffic signal.

I don't even jaywalk when I cop watch.

I recorded myself being stopped

in the middle of the street

when it was still my turn to cross

and I was arrested for doing nothing.

Kim is in court today.

Six months ago, she was also

arrested when filming the police.

He wasn't doing anything!

- Are you nervous about today?

- No, I'm not nervous.

I have video evidence that it was

a completely bogus arrest.

I'm not nervous at all. If anything,

it's just inconvenient

that I have to keep taking time out

to keep doing this

and I'm not going to fall for

this bogus charge

just because that's what they want.

But when Kim's case is called,

the arresting officer doesn't turn up

and her trial is postponed.

She believes it's part

of a deliberate strategy

to wear cop watchers down.

The irony, I think,

is that had I not shown up,

I would have had a warrant for my arrest,

but he can come as he pleases

or not come at all.

I mean, let's be perfectly honest.

You know,

this is a white supremacist country.

The laws, the courts, the police,

everything runs on white supremacy,

so you have the cards stacked against you.

If you're a person of color,

you have the cards stacked against you.

If you're a poor person, you have

the cards stacked against you.

If you're a woman of color.

What about people

who say you're exaggerating?

I would ask those people to come

and sit down and I would ask

those people to witness

what we witness all the time.

I would also be insulted

because someone

that would say that I'm exaggerating

is probably someone

that lives in the suburbs

and has no idea the issues

that I'm talking about,

because it doesn't affect

or pertain to them.

Is there a reason

behind all these arrests

and seemingly heavy-handed police tactics?

One serving NYPD officer

with 17 years experience

is prepared to speak out.

This was actually my graduation,

one of my graduation jackets.

Julio Diaz is president

of New York's Latino Officers Association.

- When was your graduation?

- 1999.

He's now bringing

a class action lawsuit against the NYPD

claiming the existence of secret

and illegal arrest quotas.

The police department

will retaliate against you

if they think you're saying

something they don't like.

Quotas is something that they don't

want people to know about.

If you put a system now that tells

police officers to go out there,

and go stop people, and here's a number,

and if you don't come back with that

number, you're going to be disciplined,

you're going to cause some problems

with the police department,

with some police officers because

they might not know the balance now.

They might go, "Okay, I've got to get this

at all costs."

The minority communities, Latino

and African American communities,

are being targeted as enforcement strategy

by the NYPD.

Who are you going to target more?

The poor people, the people who

are not going to sue you,

the people who're not going to fight back,

the people that you know

are not going to call a politician

to come after you?

These are the people

that are getting targeted.

These allegations, that the

NYPD aggressively pursue arrest targets

were recently put

to Police Commissioner Bratton.

Bullshit! Bullshit is my response to that.

Quite clearly.

If any of my cops out there still think

we're pushing for the summons, etcetera,

I'm sorry, we're pushing to reduce crime.

Despite this official denial,

Detective Miranda is adamant

quotas not only exist,

but were a key factor

in the arrest of Eric Garner.

They went out here to put his ass in jail

for something that he didn't do.

To constitute the sale,

they had to have seen the exchange

of money and the cigarettes.

Their own reports after the incident,

they never said

that they saw an actual exchange between

Eric Garner and anybody else.

So if that was the premise

in why you stopped him,

then your stop was illegal.

Your approach to him was illegal

and you should never have

approached him to begin with.

I am minding my business, officer.

I'm minding my business.

Please, just leave me alone.

He said, "These guys are targeting me,

they're planting evidence on me."

Every time you see me,

you want to mess with me.

According to Miranda, not only were

the detectives aiming to hit their quota,

they were also punishing Eric

for daring to complain about harassment.

Prior to this,

he's already made allegations

against a team at Staten Island,

the same officers,

that they had planted evidence on him,

and are falsely arresting him

and accusing him of a crime.

Don't touch me!

I can't breathe!

To establish that they retaliated

against him was easy

for any federal investigator,

anybody with authority and oversight.

The City Council, all these people

who held the hearings,

nobody asked the right questions 'cause

they didn't want the right answers.

We should all be up in arms.

Two years on and people

in the community are still angry.

They cannot understand

why the police have not been

held accountable.

- You telling the true story?

- You tell them what's true.

Are you sure?

If it can happen to him,

it can happen to my sons, you know,

my sisters, my brothers,

and it's been happening.

To find out later

when it came out and it said

he was not going to be prosecuted,

the police officer, I lost it.

The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

For many New Yorkers,

the fact the officers involved

in the choke hold death of Eric Garner

face no charges...

...while Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed

it all, faces years in jail,

shows the imbalance in the system.

The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

Ramsey is out on bail,

but he cannot afford

to be caught out again.

With his trial looming,

Ramsey's lawyers call a crisis meeting.

I expect the DA

to ask to increase the bail.

We will do everything we can to make sure

you walk out of that court room

with us on Wednesday.

But, now that there's more in

from yesterday,

every single one is gonna make our lives,

make your life more difficult.

- So we're not getting another one, right?

- No.

Be mentally prepared, we're gonna fight

like hell to keep it from happening.

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