Cop Block

Cop Block is a decentralized police accountability project. The organization's members and volunteers attempt to draw attention to alleged or evident police abuses that happen across the United States, and work to film police to force transparency and accountability within their ranks.[1] However, believing that accountability will never end police brutality, the group shifted its focus to the complete abolishment of all law enforcement.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Cop Block
MottoBecause Cops Aren't Your Friends
FormationJanuary 1, 2010 (2010-01-01)
TypeDecentralized project
PurposePromote law enforcement accountability and abolishment, expose alleged police misconduct, promote anarchy
Key people
Pete Eyre, Ademo Freeman, Severin Freeman, Matthew Taylor.
Websitewww.copblock.org

Activities

In July 2010, anarchists and libertarians Pete Eyre and Adam "Ademo Freeman" Mueller, key members of the organization were arrested for videotaping officials at the Franklin County, Massachusetts jail.[14] The organization is known for videotaping public officials nationally, with many of the interactions ending in arrest based on an allegation that the activities violate local laws, regulations, policies or rules civil disobedience.[15]

In October 2011, Cop Block sponsored a "National Chalk the Police Day" in fifteen cities to protest arrests of protesters who had used chalk to write anti-police slogans on the sidewalks of public property. The event passed largely unnoticed. [16]

In 2011, Cop Block posted a video to their website, alleging that a Manchester, New Hampshire police officer had used excessive force on a student at West High school. According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, the student showed no visible signs of injury either in his mugshot or later interviews.[17] Cop Block founder Ademo Freeman interviewed the officer involved as well as the school principal and was subsequently arrested for illegal wiretapping, convicted and sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years of probation[18] out of a potential 21 years in prison.[19][20][21] His conviction was overturned on appeal on 1st Amendment grounds.[22]

Controversies

In July 2011, Kershaw County, South Carolina Republican Party co-chair Jeff Mattox became embroiled in a controversy after he 'liked' a Cop Block video cross-posted on a Tea Party website.[23] The controversy was reported on nationally at Politico.com.[24] Mattox stated that he would not step down from his post after the controversy[25] and stated that he had thought the Cop Block article had been an "interesting read."[26]

On October 11, 2018 Cop Block became 1 of 559 pages and 251 accounts purged by Facebook for allegedly engaging in spam and “coordinated inauthentic activity" by creating “sensational political content...to build an audience and drive traffic to their websites."[27] Among these were several other popular pages dedicated to police accountability and documenting police brutality, including Police the Police, Filming Cops, Cop Logic and Policing the Police, which had over 1.9 million, 1.5 million, 129,000, and 54,000 Facebook likes respectively. Cop Block had over 1.7 million likes. Police the Police and Filming Cops were also simultaneously eliminated from Twitter.[28]

gollark: Although ours is too, as it is confusingly funded via a weird combination of semi-subsidized loans and the government.
gollark: * paid-for-by-other-people
gollark: Anyway, the convention here is seemingly to live near university while going there and shove some of the cost onto student loans you're forced to pay back for 30 years, so commuting isn't a huge issue.
gollark: I could just be lying in a convoluted way.
gollark: I may want to do engineering of some form, which does not work well remotely.

See also

References
  1. "About". Cop Block.
  2. If You Want True Reform, Abolish The Police!|http://www.copblock.org/153330/true-reform-abolish-the-police
  3. Accountability Is Futile – Abolish the Police|http://www.copblock.org/146778/abolish-the-police
  4. “CopBlock” DOES NOT Seek Accountability|http://www.copblock.org/154085/copblock-does-not-seek-accountability
  5. Why Privatization Of Police Is A Necessary Precondition Of Abolition|http://www.copblock.org/158825/why-privatization-of-police-is-a-necessary-precondition-of-abolition
  6. All Cops Are Bad|http://www.copblock.org/154117/all-cops-are-bad
  7. What Does ‘Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights’ Mean to Me?|http://www.copblock.org/155929/badges-dont-grant-extra-rights
  8. Abolish Police & the State – The Ideas That Will Replace Them|http://www.copblock.org/147362/abolish-police-state/
  9. When the Solutions Are Worse Than the Problem, No Solution Is the Solution|http://www.copblock.org/165528/solutions-worse-than-problem/
  10. Sorry, I Cannot Help You & Neither Can Anyone Else – Abolish the Police|http://www.copblock.org/166330/cannot-help-abolish-the-police/
  11. Reality Is No Longer Avoidable; The Only Viable Solution Is To Disband The Police|http://www.copblock.org/166623/reality-is-no-longer-avoidable-the-only-viable-solution-disband-the-police/
  12. Get It Through Your Damned Heads Already, This Is NOT About Accountability|http://www.copblock.org/168977/not-about-accountability/
  13. From Accountability to Abolition: Evolution Is A Good Thing|http://www.copblock.org/169011/accountability-abolition-evolution/
  14. Berry, Conor (17 July 2011). "Trial of anti-cop, pro-govementtransparency defendants scheduled to begin Monday in Greenfield". Springfield Republican. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  15. Hanley, N. Stewart (2011). "A Dangerous Trend: Arresting Citizens for Recording Law Enforcement". American Journal of Trial Advocacy. 34: 645–669.
  16. Failinger, Marie (2012). "Talking Chalk: Talking Chalk: Defacing the First Amendment in the Public Forum". West Virginia Law Review. 115.
  17. Hayward, Mark (5 October 2011). "Video shows West High student's arrest". New Hampshire Union Leader. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  18. Johnson, Patrick (13 August 2012). "CopBlock founder Adam Mueller, a police-accountability blogger with Greenfield ties, found guilty of illegal wiretapping in New Hampshire". Springfield Republican. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  19. "Adam "Ademo" Mueller, Journalist And CopBlock.org Founder, Faces 21 Years In Jail After Reporting School Police Brutality". Huffington Post. 6 August 2012.
  20. Grossmith, Pat (6 August 2012). "Protesters hand out leaflets during jury selection in CopBlock.org wiretapping case". New Hampshire Union Leader. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  21. "'Copblock' wiretap case goes to court in Manchester". New Hampshire Union Leader. 8 August 2012. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  22. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-02-28. Retrieved 2014-05-19.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  23. Abbotts, Chris (26 July 2011). "Kershaw Co. GOP leader criticized for liking 'shoot a cop' article". WACH TV. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  24. Smith, Ben (25 July 2011). "'Shoot a cop' flap in SC". Ben Smith on Politics and Media. Politico.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  25. "Official says he won't resign over article". Augusta Chronicle. 26 July 2011. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  26. Tau, Byron; Smith, Ben (27 July 2011). "South Carolina Republican refuses to step down". Politico.com. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  27. Oliver, Darcy (2018-10-11). "Facebook removes another 800 pages and accounts ahead of midterms". Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  28. "Censorship crackdown? Top 10 alt-media pages newly banned by Facebook & Twitter". 2018-10-12. Retrieved 2018-10-12.

Further reading
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