Police violence has shaken the US to its foundation multiple times in the past decade, but the problem has not been solved and only grows with each passing year. In the face of this, intrepid cop watchers across the country have stepped up to defend working people and communities. Why does the cop watching movement matter, and what can the rest of us learn from activists who have done this vital work for decades? On the sixth anniversary of the launch of Police Accountability Report, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis speak with a panel of cop watchers, including James Freeman, Tom Zebra, Otto The Watchdog, The Battousai and Laura SharkCW.
Pre-Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Written by: Stephen Janis
Studio: Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Today we are not only going to be celebrating the sixth anniversary of our show, but we will also be seeking to answer a fairly profound question about a form of activism that has as much to do with the evolution of our show as policing itself. And that is cop watching. That’s because during the last six years as we have produced hundreds of shows, many have featured the work and personalities of this uniquely American art form. So we thought as we celebrated this special anniversary, we should do so in tandem with the people who have shared their work with us, which is why over the next hour we’re going to try to answer several important questions. First, why does Cop watching matter? In fact, why does any sort of activism matter and what makes it matter? It’s a question that I think is not asked enough, an idea that we feel must be explored in light of all the challenges we are facing.
And we’ll be trying to address it by examining the work of one of the people who literally helped invent it. He’s a man who started watching cops when VHS tapes were the dominant technology, and he’s a person who’s impacted Steven and my life in ways that are hard to measure. And of course, to help us unpack all of these ideas, we’ll be joined by cop watchers who are legends in their own rights. James Freeman, out of the Watchdog and Laura Shark, and they will be with us later to discuss their work. And at the end of the show, we’ll be making a big announcement about something Steven and I have been working on for quite some time. So please make sure to stay tuned. But of course, all of this begins with this show, the police accountability part. I mean, when we started it six years ago, we had no idea where it would lead.
I mean, sure policing was front and center as an institution that needed serious reform. Examples of police brutality were everywhere. And in our own hometown, we had just experienced the uprising after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, which engulfed our city and led to even more recognition that law enforcement was basically broken. But really, if we’re honest, there was something else, not just immediate concerns that prompted us to launch this show. Instead, I think our impetus was about something deeper. Remember at the beginning of the show, we always made clear it’s not just about the bad behavior of individual cops. No, it was and is more than that. It was a way to examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And it was that system which allows rogue law enforcement to be pervasive, which has divined our work, prompted us to dig deeper and to explore the underlying imperative that we will interrogate further as we celebrate our anniversary. So Steven, can you talk a little bit about that idea and how the show came together?
Stephen Janis:
Well, every time we looked at policing, especially the worst parts of policing, or there’s some of the worst policing we’ve seen, it occurred in communities where there was an absolute underlying unfairness to the way the community was situated. And when I say that, I mean a community which was beset by poverty or a community that had unfair economic and unfair economic inequality. And so we said, why is bad policing always part of this equation? Well, it’s because policing in a sense, enforces the idea that unfairness is okay, that unfairness is actually a natural outcome of what we call late stage capitalism. So the idea was saying if we just look at a bad cop and take what they do and just show it on the screen and not really give some context, and we’re not doing our job as journalists. So the idea was to expand the palette and say, look, this is part of a system of unfairness. Please enforce that ideology that this is actually inevitable. And so we wanted to go beyond that. That’s why we look at the system.
Taya Graham:
Really well said, Steven. Thank
Stephen Janis:
You.
Taya Graham:
And just as he was saying, back in February, 2019, we just kind of launched the show. Just sort of did it. I mean, I wish I could say it was all planned out and we were sort of working in trial and error mode, but we weren’t winging it, but we just didn’t really know where it would lead. Maybe let’s watch a brief compilation of some moments from our first shows.
Stephen Janis:
The audience is small, we’ll be out of business pretty soon. So we got this idea that we need to focus on what we did best on what we knew best.
Taya Graham:
So one thing about Baltimore City is that policing is everywhere. You’re probably familiar with the death of Freddie Graham police custody in 2015, or you might know that my city is under consent decree for racist and unconstitutional policing.
Stephen Janis:
We had to pick what we knew and make it something special.
Taya Graham:
So when Steven said he wanted to do a show called the Police Accountability Report, I thought it really made sense.
Stephen Janis:
I think that came up at the same time I’d been teaching journalism at a local university and I was trying to teach the next generation of journalists to survive. I came up with this idea of subject matter expertise, like do a show or report on what you know the best. And to us, well that was policing.
Taya Graham:
And honestly, I think it was like a last ditch attempt to really make this work to find an audience for our reporting.
Stephen Janis:
So in January of 2019, we shot our first show. We just went ahead and did it.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report on the Real News Network. Honestly, I was just hoping we could break 10,000 views.
Stephen Janis:
I would’ve been perfectly happy with that. We’re talking about 10 years. These police officers were robbing people,
Taya Graham:
So we kept going and doing more shows. This is Taya Graham and Steven Janis for The Real News. Welcome to the Police Accountability Report.
Stephen Janis:
And it seems like T’S talent hosts a show and the topic was working, and we finally found a way to get a broader audience.
Taya Graham:
Oh my gosh, Steven, look how young you were. Look how young I was reporting on policing ages. You I think a
Stephen Janis:
Little bit. It was weird because we really did just kind of do it and we just sort of made up was going along. So it’s interesting to see that how the show has evolved themselves.
Taya Graham:
I know it really has. But as we were building the show, we started to hear about a community that we knew nothing about, a group that was in a way doing what we were doing, but let’s just say in a more different and more direct style. It was a slowly growing YouTube based movement that caught our attention. Thanks in part to our mod, Noli d Hi Noli D that we couldn’t ignore. Of course, I’m talking about Cop watchers, the people and personalities that go out and actively watch the police and then post their encounters on YouTube. Now, of course, cop watching existed long before YouTube. We all know the Black Panthers who watch police in African-American communities by taking notes and keeping track of the officers who were problematic. But along with the growth of YouTube, a new type of cop watching emerged. And that’s what Steven and I decided to report on the evolution of this form of digital activism that was different in many respects than what we were used to. And Steven, this version of Cop watching was uniquely formed by YouTube, wouldn’t you say?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean, the thing was you had a historic moment where for once an average working person could form an audience or have an audience. Remember before YouTube came along, and obviously the internet, most people who wanted to report the news or report what’s going on in their community needed an intense amount of capital. They needed a broadcast license or they needed a newspaper. But suddenly YouTube had created this alternative form of reaching an audience. It was kind of revolutionary. And I think that’s why Cop watching was so uniquely positioned and why it was so different, because YouTube gave a platform that didn’t exist before, a way of communicating to an audience, a way of forming an audience that didn’t exist before. So it was really revolutionary in a lot of ways.
Taya Graham:
I have to agree. And just to let people know, I will be trying to address some of the folks in the chat. I want you to know I see you, I saw you. Linda Orr. I see you. Lacey R. Hi, Lacey. R Hey, Lacey. So I just wanted to make sure to acknowledge some of the moderators and the supporters in our community are here, and Noli Dee helped introduce me to Cop watching. And I think we can honestly say that without Cop Watchers, this would be a very different show, very different. I mean, not that we couldn’t report on police, of course we could, but reporting on Cop Watchers and the personalities that drive it gave us access to a community that shaped how we thought about law enforcement by examining their work. It changed our perspective on how law enforcement had become more pervasive and powerful than even we could imagine.
And in a way, it gave us a sense of how much policing could affect not just the health of the community, but the entire psychology of it. Meaning the fact that there was a community of people who would literally go out and document police in communities across the country day in and day out for no other reason than it had to be done influenced how we thought about our show and what we needed to report again on the system, which is how and why the idea of making a show that we called Reverse Cops emerge. So let me explain. I’m sure most of you’re familiar with the show called Cops. It’s one of the longest running police reality series ever. The format is also pretty familiar, a bunch of photo follow cops as they arrest working class Americans for generally speaking petty crimes. The show, I believe, is meant to solidify the notion that only police can impose order and that the police are the moral arbiters of right versus wrong, and that working class folks are simply degenerates only worthy of arrest and jail cells. But Steven, I think our experience with Cop Watchers gave us some other ideas on how to, in a sense, reverse this narrative through journalism.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean because Cop Watchers and people like Tom Z were had gone out and sort of shifted the narrative, right? Gone out every night and reported from the community perspective, we sort of adopt that into our show where the person, the cops would make look bad. This guy who cops go and arrest for some dumb reason, not always the dumb reason, but a reason that is questionable, let’s put
Taya Graham:
It that way. Or at least maybe for a nuisance crime,
Stephen Janis:
Right? For a ance crime. We thought, okay, let’s reverse the perspective of the camera there. The way cop watchers are. Let’s turn the camera around. Let’s not tell it from the police going in and rushing after some guy and chasing him. Let’s do it the way Tom Zebra and Otto the Watchdog and James Freeman do, where they’re the ones holding the camera and telling the story from their perspective. So we ended up dedicating a huge amount of our show to the people who had been either brutalized, questionably, arrested, whatever. That actually became like the linchpin of our show, which is just as someone from the mainstream media, that’s not the way we report on police. We follow the police around and we follow their cues. So this whole community that created this kind of reverse cops, we just followed their cues and said, we’re going to give 15 minutes to the person who got arrested and let them tell their story, just the way police get to control the narrative. And it was really, again, sort of a revolution of narratology. We are actually looking from the different perspective that the cop watchers have adopted, and I think that’s why, how it influenced our show, what made our show kind of different in some ways.
Taya Graham:
Steven, I think that’s such an excellent point and something that I think you really teased out there is that not only did Cop Watchers show us to turn the perspective around, but they also showed us, you were talking about how you had to have money to be able to control the narrative and to sort of democratize the process.
Stephen Janis:
They absolutely democratize and absolutely took away the need to have other than a cell phone camera and the ability to edit and the ability to be creative, which is what’s really cool about it. There’s so much creativity. It kind of inspired me to say, play around with the show, have the swipes, all the things that we know are signature. Or the police accountability report came from just watching Cop Watchers and what they would do. And I’d be like, well, we can’t just be this blase report. We’ve got to have a little action in there.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, we have to add a little creativity. Absolutely.
So as we built the show, we dedicated a large part of it to the perspective that mainstream media ignores. We turned the camera around to give the people who’ve been negatively impacted by policing the opportunity to tell their stories in detail. And we made the show not about police, but about the community. And no other community played a bigger role in this evolution than of course cop watchers. And no other cop watcher embodies the spirit of that ethos better than the man we will be talking about tonight. And I am of course referring to the legendary og cop watcher, Tom Zebra. And like our show, his story and his life is intertwined with his work, and it is that work that’s transformed him and the community he lives in. But let me try to share part of his story so you can understand why that is so important.
It’s the story of a man who lived in Los Angeles in one of the city’s struggling neighborhoods who saw a problem. People have been cracking down on, excuse me, police have been cracking down on working people for years with aggressive car stops, arrests for minor infractions. Law enforcement had adopted more and more punitive tactics as a way to fight crime, but that’s not what happened, and that’s not really why they were doing it. And this man understood this implicitly. He knew that over policing was an instrument of poverty. He understood that it only made the lives of those struggling to afford housing and even put food on the table. Even worse, he comprehended the pain inflicted by a system that trapped people and stripped them of their ability to fight back. But what did he do? I mean, in a sense, he didn’t have the tools necessary in our money fueled system to fight back.
He wasn’t a powerful politician or billionaire. He wasn’t a celebrity. He was just a man, passionate man, but one seemingly without the power to protect the community he loved. So what did he do? Well, he picked up a camera, not a cell phone, but a camera back when video was recorded on VHS tapes when YouTube didn’t even exist when the internet was still in its infancy. And when his fight was essentially his own will and ingenuity against the entire Los Angeles law enforcement industrial complex. But against those odds, he decided to fight. And he did it despite a powerful institution more than willing to fight back despite the obvious imbalance of power of one man with a camera against a legion of guns and badges. And he did it for the myriad of reasons people in our flawed democratic republic decide to step forward. He did it because it had to be done. Let’s watch a little bit of his video from 2005.
Speaker 6:
Man, where you going? Why a hard T got a bike license? Have a bike license. The driver’s license. I told you to that I, yeah, it does. Your bike over here. Probation, parole. Why you being such an ass about it? What’s your problem tonight? I have no problem. Good. You have a bike license for your bike? No, I don’t see one on there. No, you need to register your bike and the city have a bike license. You riding the city. Where are you going? Okay, where are you coming from? Okay. You want to
Taya Graham:
Do a difficult No,
And of course that was the OG I was talking about at the beginning of the show, Tom Zebra. In that dramatic footage, you can see how one person with one camera lit a fire that burns bright to this day. You see someone who’s fighting against power in ways that would eventually be adopted by thousands of cop watchers and activists using the camera, not just as a mirror, but as a tool of dissent recording video that no one would perhaps ever see, but still recording. Anyway. Steven, can you talk a little bit about how Tom has helped shape contemporary cop watching?
Stephen Janis:
Well, the thing when I was watching that video and I was thinking about it, and we both hung out with him a little bit. He is tireless, right?
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Stephen Janis:
He’s like a one man mainstream media kind of org,
Taya Graham:
One man media machine,
Stephen Janis:
Right? Because the thing that was really interesting about Tom and talking to him, we interviewed him a lot. He goes out every night and he goes out every night and he just films. And sometimes when he films, something happens and he will confront police as what he sees as being wrong. And that to me is such a David and Goliath story of someone who goes out and is willing to every night, watch cops no matter what, and willing to push back. And that creates, I would say, an alternative mainstream media ecosystem. Not mainstream in the sense that it looks like mainstream media, but that counter power, that counterbalance that doesn’t always exist in a community to tell their own stories. And so he was out there like a storyteller looking at what’s happening, watching and observing and exposing police in ways that are more subtle. It’s not just about the really, really bad events, but the way they abuse their power. And when you watch these Zoe videos, you can see where are you going, where are you headed, what are you doing? Those are the things that create this psychology of power that makes policing so devastating for people living communities where that type of policing is allowed. And I think Tom did the work
And that really made a difference.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. That’s such an excellent point. And just to add to that idea, let’s run a clip about Tom Zebra. We produced for this yet to be announced project.
Stephen Janis:
Why were they focused on policing? What were they getting out of this and what was the real story?
Speaker 7:
It was like to protect myself from the police.
Stephen Janis:
Hello.
Speaker 8:
What’s going on
Stephen Janis:
Man?
Speaker 8:
Not much you doing here.
Speaker 7:
Doing know the tapes will just go in a box.
Speaker 8:
Good. How are you? Just your car?
Speaker 9:
Yes sir. Where are you coming from? Where do you
Speaker 8:
Live? I’m coming from getting dinner and I’m going home. Do you
Speaker 9:
Any guns or knives in the car?
Speaker 8:
No, sir.
Speaker 9:
You got valid driver’s license?
Speaker 8:
Yes,
Speaker 9:
Sir. Where is it at? It’s
Speaker 8:
In my center
Speaker 9:
Console. Don’t reach. You got any? You don’t have a gun or anything in
Speaker 8:
There? No, sir. There’s nothing illegal in here.
Speaker 9:
What’s going on with the camera? That’s the camera. Yeah, but what’s going on with that? Well, it’s sitting there
Taya Graham:
Recording. Mr, why don’t you pull me over? But this is only just part of the story, the beginning about the growth of a collection of YouTube activists that stood up for communities across the country, a movement that has actually achieved something tangible. People who connected on YouTube and other social media platforms to push back against power and actually made a difference. Activism that might’ve started with OGs like Tom Zebra, but has expanded to include hundreds if not thousands of channels and YouTubers working in big cities and small towns across the country. And so to talk about how this happened and what it means, and of course the work of Tom Zebra, we’re going to be joined by several guests who have been intimately involved in all of it. And to get this discussion started, we are happy to have Otto the Watchdog as our first guest. I mean, really, who else could it be? And just to let you guys know, if you see me looking down, that is because I’m looking to make sure to put some of your lovely comments on the screen. And I wanted to let you know, I think we finally have super chats and super stickers.
Now, I don’t know if you guys know this, but we don’t run any ads on our channels, and I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve never done a HelloFresh commercial, so we don’t take any corporate sponsors, but if you want to buy us a little super chat so we can say hi to James Freeman or a The Watchdog for you, we’d be happy to do that.
Stephen Janis:
And also, we should also tell people to try to subscribe to our newsletter. Go to the real news.com. You can subscribe because that way, even if you don’t have money to be able to support our journalism, you can also subscribe to the newsletter and keep in touch with what we’re doing. So we really would like people to do that as
Taya Graham:
Well. Yes, absolutely. You can hit and subscribe to the email and that would really help us as well. Now back to Otto, he’s probably one of the best, along with our other guest, James Freeman, at actually injecting comedy into the practice of Cop watching. He’s a style that is both unique and illuminating. You know what? Let’s watch a quick clip about Otto talking about how he came up with this.
Otto The Watchdog:
So I wanted to do something comical because I was becoming an angry person. I was sitting at my kitchen table, I was writing down slogans. I said, well,
Speaker 10:
He’s got stuff from there and in other counties that they’re going to try to put together and they’re going to try to get his ass organized crime.
Otto The Watchdog:
I said it out loud and I was like, hand stuff
Speaker 4:
That
Stephen Janis:
Awesome, Otto, that could have been a hit song if maybe Otto, if you’d had a few less swear words in it, I
Taya Graham:
Guess. But the thing is, I’m sure with the beeps, I am sure you all could probably figure out what was being talked about. Some of you who know the cop watching community, well might’ve recognized the other voices singing despite all the beeps. And that Otto is another important member of the cop watching community, Eric Brant, who was known for his extravagant actions to help protest treatment of the Denver homeless community. And like Tom Zebra, Eric Brat is an important part of the Secret project that we’ve been working on that we cannot wait to share with you. But perhaps it would be better to let the fellow singer speak for himself, which is why we are joined by Otto the Watchdog. Thank you so much for joining us.
Otto The Watchdog:
Hi. It is pleasure to be here. Thanks. It’s always nice to be here.
Taya Graham:
Well, we’re so glad to have you are so glad. And first, we just want to ask you a very simple question, or maybe actually it’s not a very simple question. What got you involved in COP watching? What prompted you to pick up a camera and start filming your encounters with police?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, those are two separate things. So what got me started looking towards police and being upset in general was license plate lights. A lot of my friends were being pulled over and they were being pressured to allow a search of their vehicle over license plate lights. And when one of my friends was roughed up and one of those traffic stops, I decided that something had to be done. And the inspiration to film it came from people like Tom Zebra and James Freeman. Freeman was in my local area at the time, and I saw those guys and I thought that it was a great idea. And then I found out that there was actually a lot of people doing this, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to get run over and falsely accused of some pretty terrible stuff. And I wasn’t expecting that it was going to go bad, but it did quickly. So
Stephen Janis:
When you say it went bad quickly, can you just explain a little bit what you mean by that? It went bad quickly. Are you talking about the potatoes or something like
Otto The Watchdog:
That? Oh, no. So yeah, the potatoes, the first time I went out with the camera, I was only out for 15 minutes before I had my first police contact. And that was when I was like, oh, this is probably going to be a little bit more of a thing than I thought it was. Then I took a break for a while and I really went out and looked and made sure that what I was doing was going to be legal. And if it wasn’t for people posting on YouTube, their encounters, I never seen it. And like Tom Zebra, he was doing it before when VHS was out and he said that he put all those tapes in a box and nobody would ever know unless a major production company put it together and then distributed those videos.
Stephen Janis:
Right, which is what we’re trying to do. Not really, but we did use some excerpts from them. But Kate, go ahead.
Taya Graham:
Oh, I do have to ask though. I mean, we’ve discussed and highlighted some of your more humorous approaches to watching cops. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I know it might seem strange to people who see police brutality or police overreach and says, that’s not a funny topic, but you managed somehow to bring humor into it. Can you kind of explain how you did it and why you did?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, I did it because I brought humor into it because it is so dark. It is not a funny topic. And it was something that I felt passionate about and I think that everybody should know, mainly because my family was very supportive of law enforcement. I have several members of my family who are law enforcement, and we get along fine, just for the record, everybody’s fine. Thanksgiving can get a little bit, sometimes we have to change the topic of conversation,
But I believe that they were good people and they think that they were doing good work and doing good things. And since I’ve been more active in this topic genre specifically, we’ve come to the conclusion that they might’ve not been breaking the law and violating, violating people’s rights, but they were violating people’s rights. You mentioned the long running show cops. Well, that was very popular when I was a kid. We watched it all the time, and I watched it for a long, long time, and I loved that show. It was always entertaining. There was always something going on. Now here I am many years later, I go back and watch that show and shows like it, and basically every single encounter is a violation. Every single one of those is like, oh, well, why are they doing that? Why are they immediately pulling somebody out and putting ’em in handcuffs? What’s the purpose of that? And they’re beating people up. They’re very violent. But that was because that’s the content that got them the most views and interesting. Nothing’s really changed about that. I guess there’s still the thing that gets them the most views is when they’re the most violent.
Stephen Janis:
That’s really interesting because now there shows live pd and there just seems to be this fascination with other people’s misery. But that’s really interesting. And so at some point you kind of said, I’ve seen enough actual encounters with cops that I know that kind of propaganda the cops is promulgating or whatever. I know that’s actually false. I mean, is that what someday it just clicked for you? Or is it because after you went out a couple of times you kind of felt like, wow, this is all wrong?
Otto The Watchdog:
Oh no. It was a slow progression and then a sudden snap. I was watching these things because I wanted to know what I was illegally required to do at traffic stops
Laura Shark:
And
Otto The Watchdog:
Things of that sort. I didn’t really have any run-ins with the law, but when I was not quite an adult yet, there was an incident where law enforcement, there was a fight in the park and the law enforcement showed up and somebody pointed at me and I was arrested. I was not involved in it,
But nevertheless, I went to jail and I was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. And that case was dismissed because I wasn’t the guy, but I had to call into a bondsman every Wednesday with the threat that I could be arrested if I didn’t. And that went on for a while. So that was my first, oh, maybe these guys aren’t all superheroes. And then again, one of my friends was pulled over for their license plate lights being too dim, not being bright enough, and she’s a minority. And when the police officer pulled up to the window, said, get out, and she asked one question and he opened the door and yanked her out and then roughed her up a little bit. And I just had enough. I just had enough. And that’s when I put my boots on for the first time and actively what I love about cop watching. Thank you for asking Steven. What I love most about Cop watching is that protesting in general is a reactive response to a situation that has occurred. Cop watching is a proactive protest, or No,
Stephen Janis:
You’re right.
Otto The Watchdog:
I’m using protests loosely there. Cop watching is proactive. We can go out and actively look for these.
Stephen Janis:
That is such a great way to put it.
Otto The Watchdog:
I love
Stephen Janis:
That. Cop watcher is always smarter than me because I wrote this whole script, but Otto said it in a way. Otto, sorry, I should be looking at you. But you said that, and that is so right. You guys go out there sometimes when there’s nothing going on, right? I mean, you’re just, you’re out there and you’re just watching
Taya Graham:
Or listening to a scanner, right?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. I mean, that’s such a different form of protest. You’re right. We have protests now against this administration or that, but Cop watchers just out there active. That’s pretty interesting.
Taya Graham:
I just want to mention this, since we did have Eric Brat singing earlier, we’re going to talk a little bit more about him later as we share our big project, but you connected with him and others that helped create this community that we covered. How did you connect with people like Eric Brat or Monkey 83 or Joe Kool or any of the other folks that we were fortunate to meet?
Otto The Watchdog:
That was definitely a 100% direct response from James Freeman being in my local area at the time, that I needed somebody to be local. And he just happened to respond to my email. And we’ve been good friends ever since. And I mean, he might disagree, but I can’t count James Freeman among my friends. I would invite him over for dinner. That’s wonderful. Eric. I had seen some of his videos and this man looks absolutely nuts, and I love it. I love it because he is so far out there that if he can get away with what he’s doing, then what I’m doing must be fine. And he was kicking ass and he would be arrested. And then before you know it, the cases are dismissed. And he did file a lot of lawsuits and he won quite a few, a lot of lawsuits, and he won a lot of his cases.
Taya Graham:
It was actually impressive. I think some of his lawsuits, he won the right for body cameras and
Stephen Janis:
Englewood,
Taya Graham:
Colorado.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. First a training,
Taya Graham:
First Amendment training,
Stephen Janis:
He $35,000 tattoo that
Taya Graham:
That’s right.
Stephen Janis:
He got arrested for a tattoo.
Taya Graham:
I think he was arrested on nearly 200 times and won over 80% of his cases. I mean, that’s a pretty impressive track record.
Otto The Watchdog:
It’s a staggering track record. It really is.
Taya Graham:
I am glad you mentioned Eric again, because I know he must have shaped to some extent how you do cop watching and how the community came together. I mean, how would you describe Eric’s role, just out of curiosity?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, the cop watching and protesting are two separate things that I do both. I do both of them, but they are sometimes intertwined, but they are different. Cop watching is usually a little bit more somber. You’re just trying to document the thing. And then sometimes I would just get the calling and have to sing a song. And the song was inspired by Eric, his signs, and then I just wanted to make it into a rhyme. And then it just evolved into a song and it sounded really good. It was easy to sing, and I could do it loudly, and that was the key. And Eric and I, we could harmonize together and just pop it off. We had a unique chemistry that allowed such a thing like that. And as far as the protesting, Eric definitely shaped the protesting. He absolutely shaped what I was, everything from the sign and then his clothes. I liked that he would wear bright green clothes and everything about him screamed protestor. And then for him to be arrested, it’s clear and obvious to everybody that he was arrested for what he was saying and what the sign that he was holding. And I appreciated that.
Stephen Janis:
Wow. Well, last question we wanted to ask you, just give a little bit about what do you think about Tom Zebra? Did Tom Zebra influence your work at all? Or how do you feel about his work and how it’s influenced cop watching?
Otto The Watchdog:
Yeah. So I saw Tom Zebra after I had gotten fully immersed in what was going on because he’s in California and I’m not.
So I was trying to find somebody in Texas because I knew that Texas and California law were different, different enough that you need to know what goes on in Texas, not California. Right? So when I finally found Tom, I was well into my activism. So he didn’t necessarily shape and drive me directly, but I guarantee you that he inspired somebody that I saw at some point, or the six degrees of separation. I know that Tom Zebra shaped me and encouraged me through his actions, even though I hadn’t heard his name until well after I had begun. And again, Tom Zebra goes out every single night.
Stephen Janis:
I know,
Otto The Watchdog:
Right? It’s amazing. And if he’s not posting a video every single day, it’s because nothing happened last night. And when a cop watcher is not posting a video, in my opinion, that’s a good thing. We should not have content.
Taya Graham:
That’s a good point.
Otto The Watchdog:
None of us should be anybody worth interviewing because our channels should have zero followers. We should have zero views. But that’s not the case. And it’s not the case because, well, police officers feel like they can do whatever they want to because they’ve been able to do whatever they want to. They’re told that they can do it. And until that changes, I think that this genre is going to continue to grow. And as it has dramatically. So in the last five years since specifically the Floyd protests
Stephen Janis:
Instead Armada, the show should be, this show would not exist without the bad behavior of individual cops, I guess, right?
Taya Graham:
In some way. I mean, I’ve said before I would be happy if I didn’t, if I could report on something else.
Stephen Janis:
That’s a profound statement. We should have no followers and no videos.
Taya Graham:
That’s a really profound statement. Just before we let you go, I believe it was Tyler Smith asked what happened to Otto’s arrest at the gas station where the cops solicited a complaint on the day he had court for custody. Did you have that resolved?
Otto The Watchdog:
It did. That case is resolved. It took a while, and I took a beating. So we resolve that case out of court for, I believe that settlement was $90,000. And I took that money and split it 50 50 and put it into savings accounts for my children because they’re the victims. And I am deeply bothered by the events that happened early in my channel because they continue to affect you every single day. It’s something that never goes away, and I never wanted that, never thought that that would be a thing. And I’m glad that it’s over and looking forward, all we can do is hope that justice will prevail.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing that. And we just want to tell you how much we appreciate hearing from you, and we’re going to drag you back on a live stream in the future. I’m sorry. And we’re just have to do it.
Stephen Janis:
And remember, we both are going use Invisit on our car.
Taya Graham:
That’s
Stephen Janis:
Right. Your sponsor.
Otto The Watchdog:
Oh yeah, invisit. It’s the only window film approved by Nala.
Stephen Janis:
Okay, well let’s not go there, but let’s say this. It’s completely transparent, so police can’t see it. Neither can you. It’s pretty awesome. Perfect
Taya Graham:
Tint to make sure you never get arrested for Windows again.
Stephen Janis:
Alright,
Taya Graham:
Otto,
Stephen Janis:
Thank you Otto, it
Taya Graham:
Great to have you as always. Awesome. And I did just want to make sure that people saw that we had some lovely comments here. People really appreciate you, Otto. Thank you.
Otto The Watchdog:
Hey, I appreciate you guys. I wouldn’t have made it through it if it wasn’t for my friends and fantastic supporters. I could not have gotten through that if it wasn’t for you guys.
Taya Graham:
Oh, Otto,
Otto The Watchdog:
Thank Attia. And Steven, thank you for doing what you do because when I was doing this, we didn’t have a lackluster that would focus on these channels. You guys also pioneered your own little branch here because before the police accountability report, we really didn’t have anybody that cared enough to bring our videos to a larger audience in a professional way. Because a lot of people who do this are motivated, dedicated, passionate, but we’re not video editors, audio producers, and we don’t have all the skills and material and resources to do what you guys do. So thank you. Thank you as well. You’re
Stephen Janis:
Welcome. It was our pleasure,
Taya Graham:
Otto. We appreciate that more than thanks for being know that was really kind of you. Thank you. Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
That means a lot.
Taya Graham:
Especially because the Washington Post came in and said, oh, there is such a thing as Cop Watchers. I was like, thanks for noticing. Five years later,
Stephen Janis:
Right? Good
Taya Graham:
Job
Stephen Janis:
Five years after, but
Taya Graham:
At least finally, you guys are getting the recognition that you deserve.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re so happy about that. And I just did want to also make sure to say thank you to Michael Willis, who was kind enough to give us a donation. Very kind.
Stephen Janis:
Thank
Taya Graham:
You, Mike. And I thought that was really kind. Thank you. And I just want to make sure someone else said in response to our conversation about Eric, they could not stop Eric, so they put him away like they did. That was from DJ Plus. So I just wanted to let you all know I am taking a look at your comments, and I’m going to put them up whenever I can. You know, Stephen, that story about how Otto and Eric Brandt and Monkey 83 and Friends in Code and Chris Powers, how they got together is pretty incredible.
I mean, they all met on YouTube and they were all connected because of their support for Cop Watchers and each other, and they sort of built a community together. I mean, that’s an interesting story.
Stephen Janis:
Well, no, I think it’s interesting listening to Otto talk about how he connected with James Freeman, and you know how James Freeman connected with Eric and these guys are all working in different places.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. All
Stephen Janis:
Across the country. And organically created a network of people to bring these stories to people’s attention. And that’s not how YouTube is often advertised, is building communities and building actual physical activism. As Otto said, it was proactive. We said, here’s the problem. We’re going to go out every night and film that is so different from many things that, and I think we could all learn something from that activism.
Taya Graham:
And I have to say this, and this is a personal opinion, but I think it is very brave to go out on the streets armed with nothing but a camera.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
And trying to make sure that your community has justice. So I think that’s a very brave thing to do,
And that is one of the reasons why we did that documentary. But we’ll save some more of those details for a little bit later. Hope you stick around and hear more about it. But for now, we’re going to be joined by a person who has been one of the most visible, prolific, and creative members of the community. He is notorious for turning routine encounters with police into revealing examples of comedic role reversal that reveals much about the power that police have and how it affects us in unseen ways. Let’s watch a clip of one of his encounters.
Speaker 11:
But these people have been told that they’ve got it in their head, that they literally have a right. They have the authority to just arbitrarily control everyone around them.
Speaker 12:
Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s James Freeman. You doing all right over here? What department are you with? You got ID on you. I sir. Dude, can I see it? Please.
Speaker 11:
I was even disturbed by the fact that this cop let me do it. Most of the people in the comments are like, man, this is the nicest cop ever. No human should tolerate that from another human. It’s wrong.
Taya Graham:
And now we have to give a big welcome for James Freeman. James, thank you so much for joining us.
James Freeman:
Hey guys, thank you for having me on the show again. It’s always good to be here.
Taya Graham:
We love having you. So happy to have you. And so first off, if you don’t mind, I would like to ask you about the legendary Tom Zebra. What did you think of his work? When did you first see it and has it influenced you at all?
James Freeman:
Honestly, I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but Tom Zebra influenced, he was one of the first. And when he was out there doing this stuff, I’ve said this before actually, I’ve compared Tom Zebra to a pioneer. Well, I have a lot of ancestors that crossed the plains over into the west, and we call ’em pioneers, right? And they blazed a trail. When they did it, it wasn’t easy. Basically when I came into the game, it was a lot easier than when Tom Zebra did it because Tom Zebra was basically Bush whacking it. He came up with the idea. He was the one who decided, alright, I’m going to go out and record these guys. When I started, I had people like Tom to help me understand what I legally could and couldn’t do. Tom, I don’t know who was his influence, but without people like Tom, I probably would’ve ended up in prison or in jail before I even really hit the ground. Got going.
Stephen Janis:
And what prompted you personally to start doing cop watching? Why did you decide that, Hey, I’m going to do this. I’m going to take this risk, the risk of getting arrested and go out and film police. What kind of motivated you to do that? How did it get started for you personally?
James Freeman:
Like Otto, it was a lot of things. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily just one thing.
I can tell you that the first video I ever shot though was when I was going through an inland border patrol checkpoint that I traveled through on a regular basis as me and my family were traveling between Arizona and Texas. And for those who don’t know what that is, you don’t cross a border or anything. But these federal police stop you and start asking interrogating questions. And it really doesn’t even have anything to do with stopping immigration or drug trade or anything like that, because all you have to do is they ask you, are you a US citizen? And if you can say the word yes, it’s like that’s the magic word. Yes. You’re no longer what they’re looking for. And I was realizing that this really wasn’t even about stopping crime or even immigration or drug traffic or anything. It was about conditioning people to obey and to understand who their master was. When master tells you to say yes, you say yes.
Speaker 7:
Wow. Wow. That’s
James Freeman:
Really
Speaker 7:
Powerful.
James Freeman:
So I shot that video and I really only shot the video to show it to four or five of my close friends and one of my friends, I couldn’t figure out a way to share it. I was trying to email it. I didn’t know anything about this technology stuff. I sucked at it. And one of my more technologically advanced friends said, Hey, best place to share a video is on YouTube, or even just with friends. So I uploaded it to YouTube. I didn’t even know how it worked. And so it was set to public, and two weeks later, a handful of other people who did this type of stuff regularly saw the video, shared it, and it had a half a million views within two weeks. And people were reaching out to me and saying,
Stephen Janis:
James,
James Freeman:
Do this again. Do it again. And I’m like, dude, what? That’s
Stephen Janis:
Incredible. That’s amazing. I mean, a half a million views, that’s not easy.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Wow. That’s amazing.
Stephen Janis:
That is amazing.
Taya Graham:
I have to ask you though, and I suppose this is somewhat of a serious question, but what is it like going out there holding a camera knowing that you might possibly be arrested, and how do you deal with that threat and how does it affect you?
James Freeman:
People talk in my comment sections. People are like, oh, James, you’re so brave. You never back down and you never get scared. That’s not true at all. Anybody who does this knows that the people we’re dealing with are armed terrorists. That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter what laws or don’t law, or I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter what laws or don’t know. These people don’t operate under Law and order. They’re terrorists. They’re armed people who are willing to do anything that they can get away with to you. And law legislation, none of it really plays a part. The only thing to me that really plays a part is that I think that they feel some duty to hold up the illusion that they’re some type of legitimate law enforcement or some type of legitimate entity. And so I try to play on that more than anything because I know they don’t actually care about the law, but sometimes they do care about public opinion because if people really understood, if people really knew what they were, they’d be completely abolished immediately. I’m not just talking about the people that you talked about earlier, poor lower class, financially. I mean, if everybody middle class upper, maybe upper class knows what they are, but I really think that if most people really knew what they were, they would say, whoa, we want a system of law and order, and this is not it. This is armed thugs ruling our streets.
Stephen Janis:
Now, is that why you did those? Because we showed some of the videos, the video where you’re asking an officer for ID and those sort of rural reversal kind of videos. Is that where you got that idea? Because to me, they’re so revealing about policing space saying, I can come up to any person at any time and demand almost with the threat of arrest. Is that why you did those kind of videos because of that?
James Freeman:
Yeah.
Yeah. And that was inspired by a book that I read, the Most Dangerous Superstition by Larkin Rose. And I was reading it, and he was basically comparing, most of us were told that government is by the people, for the people, and that we delegate power and authority to our government. Therefore, and the point that he makes is if that’s true, then I can only give to you or delegate to you what I have. And so a lot of people even mimic this, that government can only have the power or authority that we give to them. But when we talk about it hypothetically and say, what if I were to go up to a cop and do this, still usually just doesn’t quite click with people. It’s a hypothetical, but when you actually do it, all of a sudden it’s shocking. It’s like, wow, what an arrogant piece of crap. This guy is a total douche bag. And I did it recently just a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years, and the internet has gone crazy over it. People described me in the way that people like Tom Zebra have been describing cops for a long time, and it’s horrible the way that they were talking about me. I said, that’s it. That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you.
Taya Graham:
Wow, that great. And those new videos are really amazing. I
Stephen Janis:
Would encourage everyone to go to James Freeman’s channel.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. And of course, all the watchdogs channels as well, watch or Tommy. But it’s amazing. And there’s a moment, one of the videos where, I know it sounds like a strange thing to say, but you snap on these gloves and it’s like somehow it gives you another level of authority. You already had the authority in your voice, but then when you snapped on the gloves, it was as if the person, the officer you were interacting with just handed over her authority to you. It was amazing. So when you folks have a chance, definitely go check out his channel. And I wanted to mention, since I was mentioning Otto as well, when did you find yourself really interacting with other YouTubers and other cop watchers?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, that’s good question.
Taya Graham:
I mean, I think you connected with Eric Brant fairly early on, but when did you find yourself interacting with other cop watchers and forming that community?
James Freeman:
Actually, Otto Otto was one of the first that I really connected with because he was local where I was at. So I mean, I had talked to a few others. Johnny five Oh was out in California. He flew out to visit me, but Otto was actually one of the first that I regularly connected with because it was important when we were doing this stuff to have somebody close by because there is a good chance that you’re going to get arrested, you’re going to go to jail, you’re going to need help from somebody else. The truth is, you really can’t do this stuff alone. You’ve got to have some type of support group. I mean, these cops are 900,000 strong across the whole country, and they’ve got legislators and judges and prosecutors and a whole team of people to terrorize you. And so just having a small handful of people, it was David Borin and Auto, the Watchdog that were my local people that I regularly worked with and connected with. And Otto really got the poopies end of the stick on what happened out there.
Taya Graham:
And also, I think David Bore was in the chat. So Hi, David Boron.
Stephen Janis:
Hey, David. I just want two more questions. One, Alice one then to you, what did you learn about YouTube using YouTube as a tool for publishing your videos and showing people what you were learning? How did YouTube influence your work? And I know it’s kind of a weird question, but I think YouTube is always left out of this conversation. And what did you learn about YouTube in the audience too? What kind of audience you have?
James Freeman:
Let’s see. What did I learn about YouTube?
Stephen Janis:
Well, what I mean is, I guess YouTube is a big feedback machine. You kind of learn things when you do videos certain ways, and
Taya Graham:
Some
Stephen Janis:
People like something.
Taya Graham:
I mean, and do you feel like in using YouTube, do you think the activism or the work that you’ve done would be even possible without YouTube? How important is YouTube to this whole idea, to this whole idea to the work that you do?
James Freeman:
Yeah, it’s essential. My wife asked me when I recorded at a border patrol checkpoint again, just last week, we were just traveling. We traveled an hour to go have dinner with family. And on the way back ended up going through a border patrol checkpoint. And I yelled at him and told him, you don’t have the right to do this and blah, blah. I got out of the car, I was belligerent, I was nuts on this one. And I get back in the car and my wife says, would you do this if you didn’t have a camera in your hand? I said, no, of course not.
Taya Graham:
I love the honesty.
James Freeman:
But the truth is that in the nineties when I was being bullied by cops, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t right for me to do what I do and wrong for them to do what they do. It was just that if you tried to assert your rights back then you were guaranteed to get that crap beat out of you and be thrown in jail and or prison. And so just like a cop wouldn’t do what he does without that badge and gun. And so you’re right, but also, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing here if cops weren’t doing something wrong. But you’re absolutely right though the camera, the ability to publish this and show it to the world, I really wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t show the world. I just end up beat up or dead. It wouldn’t help anyone if I wasn’t showing it to the world.
Stephen Janis:
That’s deep.
Taya Graham:
That’s incredible. But the thing is, you’ve also like Otto, you’ve incorporated humor into it, I mean, I thought what you said, because you had me read that book by Lobar, and I appreciate that, but you incorporated humor and there are these moments that seem really spontaneous. How did you decide to evolve that and why did you Yeah, it’d be funny. Yeah. How did in
Stephen Janis:
Situations sometimes didn’t seem like they were funny, but
Taya Graham:
Somehow you made them funny somehow might make them work. I don’t know how you managed to do that. Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
How do you do that? Or why did you do that?
Taya Graham:
Yeah. Better was the question. Why did you one day do that? I mean, would you see the absurdity of the situation? How did you get there?
James Freeman:
Yeah.
I think that it was both from a necessity, because I get kind of depressed watching too much of this stuff and being immersed in it too much. It’s really sad, and I am sure that you guys experience it too. Day after day after day, you see people’s lives being destroyed. You see people being terrorized, good working people. And so the comedy comes from some people have been offended by me making jokes out of really horrific stuff. But I don’t know, like Otto said, you got to do something to lighten it up. You’re either going to laugh or you’re going to cry once you really see what’s going on. So I try to laugh a little bit, and I think that it does help people. Making jokes and comedy of it, I think helps people to really truly see the absurdity of what government does, what cops do.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I think it was funny because the one that we used, the famous one where he asked the cop for his ID
Taya Graham:
And just the look
Stephen Janis:
On his face. But what’s interesting, he pauses for a second, and then you see something click in his head like, oh, this is kind of weird. Right?
Taya Graham:
Because initially he does sort of react to the authority in James’ voice, like, oh, and you see him processing, wait a second, wait a second. I’m the one who does
Stephen Janis:
This. Wait, the Exactly.
Taya Graham:
And that power reversal James, that is so powerful for people to see. It’s incredible. I don’t know. It spoke to me on a different level and it helped me interrogate for myself how much of other people’s authority, especially with law enforcement I have accepted and how I’ve had to do a lot of work to distance myself from that and find my own autonomy. And your work really highlights that. James or
Stephen Janis:
The better one, have you been drinking to, we should be showing these, but you can go to his, not the poor guy, but the cop looks at him like
Taya Graham:
Just confounded, just flabbergasted. We’re shortcircuiting his brain in that moment. Okay. Obviously I think we’re showing we’re James Freeman fans. I think we’re kind of embarrassing ourselves right now.
Stephen Janis:
But anyway, James, thank you so much for joining us.
Taya Graham:
Thank you so much. Because we are going to have to get to the super secret special person that we’ve been talking about this whole time. So we have to make sure to go forward and speak to the legendary Tom Zebra shortly. So James, we just wanted to thank you and before you go, if there is anything that you want to shout out into the world, please feel free to do so.
James Freeman:
Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. And guys, congratulations on six years.
Stephen Janis:
Thank
Taya Graham:
You,
James Freeman:
Thank you, thank you for what you guys are doing. It’s always an honor to be able to come on your guys’ show. Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you
Taya Graham:
James. Appreciate that’s really kind. We appreciate you so much. And next time we have you on the live stream, we’re locking you in for a full hour and you’re just going to have to sit with us. Just letting you know
Stephen Janis:
I’m
Taya Graham:
There. We’re locked in. Alright, wonderful.
Stephen Janis:
Cool.
Taya Graham:
Thank you James. Thank you so much. And so
We will be turning to the man we mentioned at the beginning of the show the OG cop watcher who started filming cops. And it sounds almost prehistoric to say this when people were just recording video on VHS tapes. And if you didn’t already know, his name is Tom Zebra and as we’ve explained it already and have discussed at length, his work was both pioneering and instrumental in building this community known as Cop Watchers. And just to give viewers just a little of how dedicated he is to his work and how he practically invented the current form of cop watching. We have a clip from 2012 we’re going to show, and then we’re going to have his legendary cop watcher partner, Laura Shark, come on and talk to us about it as well. So let’s take a look at this clip. Yep.
Speaker 8:
Officer, I hate to be the one to bring you the bad news. I’m going to try to break it to you gently. It’s against the law for you to ride that motor vehicle on the sidewalk here. Did you know that? Has anyone ever mentioned that to you before? Nope. None of your police didn’t tell you that in your police training.
Speaker 12:
Do you have a point?
Speaker 8:
I made it very clearly. It’s against the law for you to be on that sidewalk for me to make that left. Turn in the middle of the road and cut off that car. You’re mistaken Bacon. You need to get your motorcycle off that sidewalk. Why is that? You guys, you guys ride people on bicycle tickets every day for riding on the sidewalk, don’t you? Every day you guys write tickets to people on bicycles, don’t you? For riding on the sidewalk. And guess what? That’s not an enforceable law, but you’re on a motor vehicle. Let me ask you this, do you have an ID with you? I’m asking questions right now, not you. No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. Let me explain something to you.
Speaker 12:
I’m asking the questions now. No, keep filming. Lemme see your id.
Speaker 8:
No, I don’t have id. You don’t need to have an ID to record. It’s the camera. It has nothing to do with recording. It has to do with
Speaker 12:
You making an illegal turn
Speaker 8:
Here. I didn’t make an illegal turn. I didn’t cut off a car. I beg to differ, bro. Keep begging to differ. Do you have an ID with you? I already told you. Told me what? I already told you. I don’t need an ID to record. You’re missing the point. You’re missing the point. The reason you just pulled around and questioned me is because I was questioning you is because you made an illegal turn. Came over here to question me wrong. Do you have a supervisor, Mr. Garver?
Speaker 12:
I’ve got plenty of supervisors.
Speaker 8:
Who’s the watch commander right now? I don’t know. Why don’t you find out? Why don’t you have ’em come out here? First of all, I don’t have No, no, no, not first of all, you do work for me. I’m a taxpayer and you do work for me. Why don’t you find out who’s the watch commander and you haven’t come out here right now?
Taya Graham:
That was pretty amazing, don’t you think?
Stephen Janis:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Taya Graham:
I mean incredible.
Stephen Janis:
I know because motorcycle cops, they have their own TV show, so Yeah,
Taya Graham:
They do. And I have a little,
Stephen Janis:
What do you
Taya Graham:
Have? Some have just some folks saying that they love Tom Zebra and Laura Shark. Thank you. Slushy 58. And then I have someone saying hello, just saying, hi Jeff. Thank you. Hi. Real news fam. Good to see you. And I thought there was something that was really powerful here that was written and this is Leonine. And they said, then they came for the socialist and I did not speak out. Then they came for the next trade unionist and I did not speak out. And then they came for me and there was no one left to notice. And I thought that was really powerful because something that James said that was really important to have community that you can get in trouble, you can need help with
Speaker 4:
Bail,
Taya Graham:
You can need legal advice. And so that’s why I think the fact that this became a community so important.
Speaker 4:
And
Taya Graham:
Also of course, I appreciate that I’m a union member myself. I’m a union steward. So shout out Leah Teen. Thank you for that.
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Okay, now we are going to go to Laura Shark and Tom Zebra. Are they here with us? Do we have Laura Shark to join us? Laura Shark?
Laura Shark:
Yes. Yes.
Taya Graham:
Do I hear her? Lovely boys. I think I do
Laura Shark:
Tom
Taya Graham:
Now. So Laura and Tom, we got you.
Stephen Janis:
Oh, finally together. Great
Taya Graham:
To see you.
Stephen Janis:
Great to see you guys. Great to see you.
Taya Graham:
So first, thank you both so much for being here. And then we have to ask Tom, this is your video. Maybe you can tell us a little bit why you felt it was so important to let this officer on his motorcycle know that sidewalks are not for motorcycles. You seemed very determined there.
Tom Zebra:
You cannot imagine the amount of abuse that not just myself, five years before this, before YouTube or anything else, I had gone through the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is something that I’ve never really published, but the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals already ruled in my favor. I had already been through depositions with high power attorneys. I had already destroyed them and proved every single one of them was a liar. So when that video rolled around and you could still hear the fear of my voice despite 10 or more years of being proven and the police’s courts, the law, it’s not my court, it’s their court. I had beat them repeatedly. I knew the difference between right and wrong. And I knew even you hear Dusty Garber in that video, he tried to say, I don’t work for you. Whatever he was going to say, I don’t think he got all of those words out by that time. I already knew what they were going to say before they could say it. And it was like I was just on autopilot.
Taya Graham:
Wow.
Tom Zebra:
But that video, when I said mistaken bacon, I think that must’ve put me on the map because that’s what people just love that. And
Before we go any further, I just want to say thank you for having me on the show and Otto and James and Laura and all you guys, it is a pleasure to be here with you. The conversation, I don’t have the video playing like the audience, but all the conversation I’ve heard has just been inspiring. All these thoughts, comments. There’s no way the human mind would be able to remember all the thoughts I just had. So I’m just happy to be here and unfortunately my mind can’t keep up with all the brilliance you guys have already discussed.
Taya Graham:
Well Tom, you are part of the reason we’re here. You have inspired us and we are just so happy to have you and have all these people talk about how important you’ve been to the community. We should ask Laura, so we have to ask Laura, I mean, how did his work affect yours? And actually, actually even before I ask that, how did you guys meet? How did this connection
Stephen Janis:
Connect? We both cop watching. You just ran into each other? No,
Laura Shark:
No, no. Literally at a store. I was walking in and we both weren’t really paying attention and we almost ran into each other.
Taya Graham:
No, you’re kidding. That’s like a
Laura Shark:
Me too. And I had been shown a video, a friend of mine was like, look at this crazy guy on YouTube. And I remembered seeing it in passing and then so when we almost ran into each other, I was like, wait a minute, are you the guy from YouTube? And he was all, oh, and it kind of just kind of spiraled from there. He’s all messaged me or I think I made a comment on one of his next videos and then, I mean I really had no intention to be doing this as well, but it gets you. I went on a cop watch with them and I was terrified. I mean naturally I couldn’t do it by myself for the first couple of times and it was just kind of amazing how much I didn’t know at that point in my thirties it’s just like, how did I not know that this was happening? And then I kind of teamed up with Boxy just to be able to break the mold and not be afraid anymore. He was doing his own thing and then we met back, I guess he’d seen some of my videos and he started to take me seriously and I really appreciated that. And then we were kind of just did all that. It’s
Stephen Janis:
Interesting, I kind of think of you as a team, even though I don’t, you both have your separate channels.
Laura Shark:
Absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
Do you work as a team a lot or is it just my impression?
Laura Shark:
We cop watch a lot, but we butt heads even more. We dunno what’s up. We have no experience with that.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, we have no experience with that at all. We don’t know how to relate to that.
Laura Shark:
Yeah, we definitely have. I’ve come a long way because of him and I admit that sometimes I don’t want to. But no, he’s taught me a lot, him, Catman, Ricky, just the people that I’ve met through him too. I mean, you can’t stop learning. Every time I pop watch, there’s always something new and something else that I absorb into the situation. Something shocking, something simple. When we experience the Christopher Bailey incident, that was shocking for me. Even though it happens when you see something like that, it changes you
Stephen Janis:
Just so people know.
Laura Shark:
Friedman was saying that it will start to mess with you if you really don’t try to make a little bit of humor out of it. But that situation, there was nothing funny that
Stephen Janis:
We could. Just really quickly, so
Taya Graham:
Everyone knows who might not have seen it, Christopher Bailey,
Stephen Janis:
Who might not have seen it, it was a man who was beaten near to death by police
Taya Graham:
And or
Stephen Janis:
By sheriffs.
Taya Graham:
And your recording was instrumental, was absolutely instrumental.
Stephen Janis:
And your recording in a lie to a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Is that correct?
Laura Shark:
Yeah, it was almost a year to the day till we heard from the lawyer. I had almost had to accept that I would never know who he was, if he survived what his story was. But we kept on the story one way or another because of the deputies we would see day in and day out. So I kept posting about it and I also did a sent video to the, I think the, forget who it was, they were doing a whole thing. They were trying to Department of Justice, sorry? Oh yeah, department of Justice, department of Justice, because they were calling for any video of sheriff abusing that stuff. And I was like, oh, I had a couple. I had a lot. And that was the first on the list that I sent them and I think that’s who contacted the lawyer or something behind the scenes.
And then she contacted me and it was literally I had resorted the fact that I would never know and then boom. And yeah, we took part in that case from beginning to end and it was a weird experience. It taught me a lot and Chris couldn’t have been so undeserving of that. There are bad people in the world, I’ll admit. Police can serve a purpose. It’s just too much that we see is the abuse part, but this is so undeserving of it, the nicest man you’ve ever met. It broke my heart when we did a Zoom. We never met him in person, but we did do a zoom with him and the lawyer and he was so sweet. He actually said he was glad it to him being in his health and just being able to take that opposed to somebody that might be on drugs or just be kind of health wise. And I was like, what? He was an amazing man and he did not deserve that and I’m glad he was able to have his resolve.
Stephen Janis:
Tom, do you remember when you decided to pick up a camera? Do you remember that moment? I know when we interviewed before, you said it was to protect yourself. Do you remember that day? Oh, you do. Okay. Can you talk about that?
Tom Zebra:
I remember it was to protect me. No, I couldn’t tell you when At first I put a bunch of cameras in my car because they would pull, I had a Cadillac that I think the stereotype is they’d expect to find a black person driving it. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but I just had a really shiny, beautiful car and I, there were certain agencies I couldn’t drive through without being pulled over. I mean, even though nobody would look at these videos, I couldn’t show them. Nobody cared to watch ’em. Not even my girlfriend friends, it didn’t matter. But
Stephen Janis:
No one wanted to watch it.
Tom Zebra:
Nobody gave a shit. There was no such thing as video sharing or whatever. It wasn’t like people’s phones probably. I don’t know if they had cameras or they didn’t, but they probably didn’t. So it wasn’t a thing where everyone just makes videos and whatnot.
Stephen Janis:
That’s so interesting. And you did it. I’ve got question, Steve. Yeah, no, no, I’m sorry. I’m thinking about that. I’m trying to understand. You’re making these videos and probably at that point you had no idea YouTube was going to and you just kept doing it.
Tom Zebra:
Go ahead. Well, I knew that they’re not going to keep pulling me over and searching me. Gosh, sorry. That’s okay. They’re not going to keep pulling me over and searching me. I wasn’t very smart, but I was wise enough to know because they had already started framing me, but they were framing me for little irrelevant things and the more they would frame me and make me have to go to court and all these stupid things just because they’re mad that they were wrong when they pulled me over, the more angry I got. Eventually I didn’t want to get out of the car and be searched again.
And so the camera thing, it was just like I said to protect me and it would confuse them and throw them off so it wouldn’t have matter if I had a hundred dead bodies in the trunk. Once they seen the camera, they’d be like, what’s that for? I’m like, the video you showed just today, you hear the guy said, well, what’s that for? Well, it’s a device, it records audio and video. I guess you never heard of such a thing, right? It’s sitting there, it’s recording you. So act accordingly. And usually at that point they would just disappear so I could continue on with my a hundred dead bodies in the trunk. Yeah. So it was to protect myself. Yeah. I mean neither of them or myself, none of us understood at that point that these videos would ever even have a purpose.
If I was smart enough to think, oh, one day there’ll be, and I told you this Steven the other night, when if I was smart enough to think ahead and realize one day I’ll be able to share these videos with the world, and if the police were smart enough to realize the same thing, we could have brought some police accountability around sooner, but unfortunately adopted. Yeah, exactly. If I would’ve been that smart, I would’ve been the inventor of YouTube. And unlike the inventor of YouTube who only published one video, he published the very first video, I think, and never to this day never published a second. I would’ve never stopped publishing videos and nobody would’ve been able to terminate my channel and take my videos down. So I think police accountability would’ve went much further. I was as smart. Unfortunately I’m not, and I wasn’t
Taya Graham:
Tom, I was sort of curious. We have our theories on why sometimes police are so aggressive in communities. Why do you think the police were so aggressive in your community? I mean, there’s one of the videos we showed. There’s a clip and I see you just sitting there and eating your chicken nuggies just looking as innocent as the day is long. And I’m like, why is this cop harassing him? And so I’m just curious, why do you think the police were so aggressive in your community and aggressive towards you?
Tom Zebra:
Okay, well, let me try to explain what I think is the reason it’s part of it. I can answer that question a hundred different ways depending on my mood. But this is according to the sheriff. I know you guys are well aware of their budget. All the money that’s spent a billion dollars goes towards what I would call unlawful traffic stops. They call it pretextual. Lemme try again. Pretextual traffic stops only half of 1% of these stops results and any contraband whatsoever, according to them, that’s their story. I don’t know if is the truth better or worse, but according to them, despite all these searches, they only find something illegal 0% of the time. Wow. They sure have a whole lot of motivation. Why would you search 200 cars and you’re only going to find something once.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, it’s a very inefficient way of police
Tom Zebra:
Make what you will that either they’re finding shit more often than they’re willing to admit and taking it home or their supervisor’s taking it home. Somebody’s taking it home because you’re not going to search 200 cars, find out a damn thing, and then next week you’re going to search 200 more cars. Why not just go have lunch
Stephen Janis:
Now, Laura, it seems like every cop knows Tom at least, and a lot of ’em know you was going out with Tom a little fraught. Everyone would see you with Tom Zebra and then the cops would be like, oh, it seems like they talk to you guys. They’ll use your names.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. It seems like they know you. Do they
Stephen Janis:
Respect you? Or they just saying, Hey, we know who you are. We’re going to retaliate. What’s that about?
Laura Shark:
I don’t know if it’s respect. I would say maybe they loathe us. They’re like, oh, great
Stephen Janis:
Here. I
Laura Shark:
Mean, yeah, they always recognize, Daniel’s got so much history with most of the police in our area. I mean, there are a lot, especially when we were doing sheriff, there’s just no way to get away from me on and around 2020, I was just put to the ground. I was just doing it almost every day. And yeah, they could not know me. But overall, just the surrounding cities, I appreciate the history that he has with them. I do feel like I’ve kind of paved my own path when it comes to it. We do kind of post in different kind of formats, but for the most part, yeah, I do appreciate when they do remember me, to be honest, like good. That’s what we’re dealing with now. Okay,
Stephen Janis:
That’s back. That also means your work’s having an impact. They wouldn’t recognize, you know who you are if they weren’t all watching your videos. So that is a good sign.
Taya Graham:
Oh no, I just wanted to mention, no, there’s Chuck Bronson is in the chat, actually have watched him. I’ve lurked during some of your videos while you’re driving around listening to the police scanner, Chuck. So hi, it’s great to see you. And Laura, I had put a comment on the screen that you’d mentioned that there are a lot of great women cop watchers, and I feel like they’re maybe not quite as well known. I was wondering if there are any cop, female cop watchers that you like in particular? Any names you’d want to shout out at
Laura Shark:
All? Oh, I love a lot of them. Yeah. And Jody of course.
Taya Graham:
Is that Jody Cat Media who you’re referring
Laura Shark:
To? Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Okay.
Laura Shark:
Hi, Jody Kat. She’s close friend. I met a lot of, I mean, I don’t want to just kind of throw out names like that mean, sure, I do do Miss Denise. We lost her and I’m
Speaker 4:
Sorry.
Laura Shark:
I do know that. I mean, so many flooding my mind right now and I don’t want to forget to say one.
Taya Graham:
Sure.
Laura Shark:
But I feel like I’ve been, it has blown my mind, the evolution of women cop watchers and it’s always so great to see when I see their posts, I’m like, and they’re doing way more than me, better than me, and I can’t express how much I appreciate their work.
Stephen Janis:
Tom, you heard what people said, James Freeman, all the watchdog about your work. I mean, how does that make you feel to know that people learn from you and how much they respect you and how much you’ve meant to their lives, and also just the fact that it’s all about YouTube connected you. How do you feel about that?
Tom Zebra:
I kind of feel like I’m not allowed to say bad words, but Tom f and Zebra, whatever, I know that’s my name, my moniker, but that’s just a persona. I’m Daniel, and I feel like the town zebra, that wasn’t really a choice that I made. Didn’t, it’s going to be tough to talk about this.
Speaker 4:
It’s okay.
Tom Zebra:
It wasn’t a conscious choice. I didn’t say, oh, I’m going to hold these police accountable. I felt like they didn’t give me any choice except to defend myself. And I feel like Otto, I can’t speak for him, but I feel like he might feel that same way, James. I don’t know if James had a bad experience or not, but just in general, it wasn’t something that I chose to do. It was something that they either I had to bend over and just spread my cheeks and take it and try to smile, or I had to turn around and stand up and it wasn’t easy. But I don’t deserve all the credit. Like I said, Tom Zebra, anybody could be the Tom Zebra in their town or the Jodi Cat or the Laura or the James or the Otto. But I’m not going to suggest anybody should. You got to be willing to probably take a beating and if you have kids, if you have a wife, if you have a mortgage, it’s going to be really difficult to accomplish anything because you can’t be going to jail and court. It’s going to be rough. You guys have all said so many brilliant things. I can’t remember all. I feel like I had a comment for everything and I’ve lost track of all of them.
Taya Graham:
No, but Tom, I think you brought up a really good point, and I think it shows the sort of self-sacrifice that I see and a lot of people in the community because like you said, if you’ve got a kid at home and let’s say you’re working two jobs, you literally can’t afford to go out and cop watching. So someone’s got to go out there and take the hit, so to speak.
Tom Zebra:
Look what happened to Eric Brandt. I mean, I can make a whole show I did. I spent weeks, if not months riding around. They put a bunch of laws in his name. That’s because he’s righteous. That’s because he’s the one telling the law what it is. It’s true if they named it after him. So how do a bunch of corrupt judges send him to prison when the same corrupt judges a year later are buried in their own corruption? If they were smart, they would’ve embraced Eric brand because instead of being embarrassed and all this by their own corruption, they could have avoided it. But they’re not smart because there’s no damn consequence for ’em. So they’ll never care. They laugh all the way to the bank. I’m sorry,
Stephen Janis:
Thomas. Okay, that’s perfect. I think you had a clip that you wanted to play.
Taya Graham:
There is a clip I do want to play. I just want, so actually I will play this clip. I have one more question for Laura before we lose, have our guest leave. Let’s play the clip, but let’s play this clip. This is very special. First, it’s a very special thank you to The Battousai who, because unfortunately because of a scheduling conflict, he couldn’t be here with us today, but he wanted to make sure to say hi to us.
Stephen Janis:
Let’s watch.
Taya Graham:
Let’s watch this.
The Battousai:
Hey Tom. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the live stream however, I wanted to make a quick video in my absence. I just wanted to say that you are one of four people who inspired me to record the police. Now, I did have the honor to meet you a few years ago back in California, and we did some cop watching together. I never forgot that moment. In fact, it was probably one of the biggest highlights of me recording police. Just wanted to wish you well and hope that you’re doing well, and hope to hear from you soon. Take care, buddy.
Taya Graham:
Wow. So we want to thank Philip of the infamous well-known Philip Turner of Turner V Driver. If anyone doesn’t know that case law, go look it up right now. It’s named after that young man who in his work has helped affirm and protect the right to record police as well as support your first amendment rights. So either one of you, Laura or Tom, I just wanted to know what you thought of, but two sides stopping in to say hi.
Laura Shark:
Yeah, no, he was great. We got to meet him and when he came out, I actually went to Texas before that and met up with him. Super sweet. Just the knowledge he has is amazing, and everything that he’s accomplished is makes me a little jealous, right? He’s so young. I know. Yeah. I mean, he is a great guy.
Tom Zebra:
If I could add, it was wonderful. We made a spoof video. We also made serious videos. He went through DY checkpoint with nothing, but I’m sorry, with his, instead of giving the license, he gave his carry concealed weapon id. I think something so outrageous that that’s kind of an outrageous thing to do. You don’t get my license. I’m not rolling the window down, but I do have a gun is basically how we went through that DUI checkpoint.
Speaker 7:
Wow.
Tom Zebra:
Obviously not my id. I would’ve never put him in that situation. But besides that, everybody here, you guys too. Happy anniversary. I’m going to shut up. If you don’t shut me up, I will talk forever. Thank you guys for having me and James Otto, everybody. Laura, even I told the one guy to put his name because I don’t remember it now. Is it Adam?
Taya Graham:
Did I
Tom Zebra:
Get it
Taya Graham:
Right? Yeah. Adam behind the scenes. Yeah. Adam, that’s Adam. Absolutely. Adam, thank you Adam. Adam’s
Tom Zebra:
Making friends.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome.
Tom Zebra:
I’m going to mute my microphone and just tell you guys, I love you and the viewers, everybody. I love all you guys, and I’m so happy to be back. I’m finally healthy again. I never stopped being on the street, but hopefully one of these days I’m going to start publishing again. And I look forward to seeing each and every one of you again. I’m going to mute.
Stephen Janis:
Okay.
Speaker 4:
Thank you. Thank you
Taya Graham:
So
Stephen Janis:
Much. And Laura, thank you too.
Taya Graham:
That’s
Laura Shark:
Beautiful. No problem. Yeah, thank you. And congratulations to you.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Thank you, Laura. We really
Laura Shark:
Appreciate it you guys so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated how much you’ve done for my channel, for our channels, I mean in publishing about some of our stories and things we’ve seen. So
Stephen Janis:
Is our pleasure, the
Speaker 16:
Community for the world, happy to do it.
Laura Shark:
Oh, I thought you were going to mute
Stephen Janis:
Tom. You
Taya Graham:
Said I love the interaction
Stephen Janis:
Between them. It seems familiar.
Taya Graham:
You know what, Laura, I really appreciate that. And we are just grateful that you were willing to trust us because we are journalists and the media has a certain reputation and some of it is well earned.
Speaker 4:
So
Taya Graham:
We really appreciate that you trusted us with your stories. Thank you. We do.
Stephen Janis:
And keep up the great work out there in la.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, keep up the great work you guys. We love you too.
Tom Zebra:
One more thing, guys. I told you I’m coming through town Baltimore, right? I’m putting them motor homes. It’s going to have the mistaken baking pig on the back on both sides. I’m going to stop in as many cities as I can, and when we get there, I want you guys to tell me and teach me all about the Gun Trace Task Force and the work that you guys have done in your community. Make sure you mute me so I can’t come back on, please.
Taya Graham:
That was wonderful. We would be delighted to take you on a tour of Baltimore. We can show you where the gun trace task force dealt drugs. We can show you, we can take you to the courthouse where Sergeant Ethan Newberg shot us both daggers
Speaker 4:
As
Taya Graham:
He read his statement to the courtroom if he was being convicted on how many counts was it
Stephen Janis:
32? It was nine counts of false arrest. It
Taya Graham:
Was
Stephen Janis:
A lot.
Taya Graham:
It was 32 counts overall, but nine counts were false
Stephen Janis:
Arrest. I don’t remember exactly.
Taya Graham:
It was, it
Stephen Janis:
Was significant.
Taya Graham:
It was a significant number of counts. So we would be absolutely delighted to,
Stephen Janis:
And thank you both for being here to take you on our
Taya Graham:
Tour through Baltimore. We appreciate you.
So we have to thank all the wonderful cop watchers who joined us today. All of them are special to us because they have helped guide us through this meaningful movement. But now, just for a moment, we’re just going to spend just a little bit of time talking about us and what it means to have reached our sixth anniversary. And with that, the announcement about something we’ve been working on for quite some time now. One of the aspects of the most overlooked aspects of copy watching Cop watching is unlike much of YouTube is that it’s not all talk. What I mean is that it is about action. Literally the people we spoke to, the others who do it all must decide to go out, get a camera, find and film police. And that’s what makes it so unique in the offerings of YouTube. It is a hands-on assertion against the policing of space, against the policing of movement and against the policing of behavior and all the other sorts of psychological aspects of policing that would be hidden or less obvious if not for the work of these folks on YouTube. And that’s one of the reasons Steven and I decided we needed to explore this collection of YouTubers in more detail, tell their stories in conjunction with ours. So Steven, do you just want to talk just a little bit about what that means?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I mean, we had encountered just today listening to the cop watchers that we had so many insights about things that you wouldn’t even expect beyond the realm of cop watching, about the psychology of how our government works, the psychology of how law enforcement works and the way it affects everyone’s life. And what we thought was very interesting to us, because we had to learn as journalists who adopt to YouTube and kind of become YouTubers. And through that, through the Cop watchers, we learned how to make that work on some level. And we wanted to tell that story, how our work evolved with their work. Wanted to tell through the prism of one particular cop watcher, which is Eric Brand and his story, and sort of uses a lens for which to view this whole movement, the movement, not just about cop watching, but about journalism, right? I mean you, like I said before, I started a newspaper and suddenly I found myself in our basement recording you and producing shows. And it was a journey for all of us. I mean, we kind of wanted to share how we learned from them and also look at some of the extremes and some of the questions that Eric raised as a cop watcher going to extremes that got him in a lot of trouble and celebrate this community. So we put together a film,
Taya Graham:
And it is a film that examines cop watchers, and it does so through the lens of Eric Brandt, but it’s not just about cop watching and cameras in YouTube. It’s about an aspect of YouTube that contravenes a lot of how we characterize it. Now we have to say Eric is considered very controversial. His tactics have been criticized and sometimes even condemned. And he has also been sentenced to 12 years in prison by Denver Judge for alleged telephone harassment of judges. And this story of how it unfolded and the consequences we cover in this film is just part of explaining why YouTube is not just a platform for videos, because we also covered the improbable community that emerged from the cop watchers who met on YouTube through Eric. And these connections are forged by activism which evolved into friendship, and I would say even into a family.
And the pushback from law enforcement that wreaked havoc on their lives is also explored as well, and the way they supported each other and how they endured the consequences of watching cops and how this collective fight forged real friendships and family that led to meaningful new achievements. But most importantly, as we told the story, one aspect of it seemed increasingly clear all of this, every single aspect of it was again, premised upon taking action, along with identifying the problem, policing these people decided to do something and do something specific, not just talk, not just speculate, not just debate, but act. And that was critical because through action things changed. People picked up cameras, watched police for hours on end and create videos. They were doing something specific about a specific problem. Now, by acting, things changed and by connecting their lives were transformed by using YouTube to come together in this, I don’t know, tactile sphere we call reality.
They changed it. I mean, as we mentioned earlier, I think we might have an issue with the Washington Post article. Even the Washington Post finally acknowledged in this article that cop watchers had changed police behavior. But enough of that kind of analysis onto the official announcement, Steven and I have filmed multiple documentaries, including the Friendliest Town, which is on policing on the eastern shore, about a Maryland police chief who was fired under very controversial circumstances and tax broke, which is a feature length investigation into the ways wealthy developers get even wealthier off the backs of my city’s taxpayers. And hopefully we might have a few links to those in the chat. We now have a new film that I’m excited to announce. It’s called I Am, but The Mirror, the Story of American Cop watching. It’s the story of the evolution of the YouTube version of Cop watching through not one, not two, but possibly three separate lenses. But let’s watch the trailer first and then maybe we can talk about it a little
Speaker 4:
Bit. Global. Globaltel Link has a collect call for you
Speaker 11:
From Eric.
Stephen Janis:
Our top story, a controversial Denver activist, is facing sentencing for threatening, not one, but three Denver judges.
Speaker 10:
Eric Brandt is an agitator. This is why I now advocate for the random shooting of judges. Judges have absolute
Otto The Watchdog:
Immunity, nothing that they do can they be held accountable for. I met Eric through YouTube. I really didn’t like the guy when I first saw his stuff. I thought that I’m going to watch his poor guy get his ass whipped on tv.
Speaker 16:
He’s going to say something, this cop’s going to flip the and whip his ass.
Speaker 10:
Here’s what he did in this case, he told Judge Rudolph’s staff, it is my thought that Judge Rudolph should be violently murdered. Who in the world thinks that that’s okay, Mr. Brandt, on each of these three counts, you’re sentenced to four years in the Department of Corrections. For those of you who do not know, a congregation of adult pigs is called a sounder.
Stephen Janis:
When TERs came to me with this idea of we’re going to cover these people called Cop Watchers, I was like, what? And I watched a couple videos and I was like, no.
Taya Graham:
So I finally come in, Stephen, to look at this video of a man who got arrested for filming the police.
Speaker 12:
Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s James Freeman. You doing all right over here? What department are you with? You got ID on you.
Speaker 16:
I’d say there’s about 800 people that have their own channels that are filming the police and either going live and doing it or posting in their videos later.
Speaker 17:
One of the things that, in talking about all that’s gone on is that without Eric Brand, none of this would’ve come to be.
Taya Graham:
Well, Steven, I’m sure you might have something to say since you’re the one who put together that trailer and also is the one playing the guitar and doing that music. So
Stephen Janis:
Do you want me to sing the theme song?
Taya Graham:
No, that would Maybe next time, maybe next time everyone, he can sing for you. But this time, maybe just give us a little bit about the layers of the film.
Stephen Janis:
Well, the layers, like I said, you have Eric’s, I guess, the evolution of Cop watching through the eyes of Eric and how Eric became sort of tested the extremes. And then you have the other layer of this community that was formed by YouTube of all things where people met online, but then ended up doing something active in the actual world and the tactile existence. And then you had the evolution of our journalism, as I said before, of how we learned become journalists on YouTube, and how we covered a movement that actually ended up changing the way we covered things. I mean, literally, it was like a mirror effect in some way where we adopted the way Cop watchers kind of adopted to YouTube. So all those things are told in the story,
Taya Graham:
And
Stephen Janis:
I thought it should all be put together in one place, what I like to do. And it had 1500 edits.
Taya Graham:
Yes,
Stephen Janis:
It was very,
Taya Graham:
This took a lot of work traveling out to Colorado, back and
Stephen Janis:
Forth.
Taya Graham:
And if you think cops cop watchers chasing cops or something, we were chasing the cop watchers around as they were chasing cops.
Stephen Janis:
So
Taya Graham:
We put a lot of heart and effort into it, and we really hope that you’re going to check it out when we do our launch.
But one of the reasons though, I really wanted to tell the story myself is to show how my evolution as a journalist was actually accelerated by reporting on the community of cop watchers that we feature in this documentary. And I wanted to share that I learned a lot from people I really didn’t even know and would’ve never have known at all if it hadn’t been for YouTube. And I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in Baltimore City and that I understood police misconduct, of course, which is something I experienced personally, but I had seen it as an urban issue. Cop watchers and auditors and independent journalists and people who are literally this comment section right now, they reached out to me and they helped me understand that I should investigate rural communities. That those communities were also enduring pain and harassment and exploitation at the hands of police.
And this was critical to me understanding that the police industrial complex has a boot that steps on many necks, and we need broad consensus across racial lines across city versus country, right versus left. We’ve got to agree this needs to change because it’s hurting all of us. And that for me is what makes this whole story so critical that these social media platforms that normally just keep us isolated and divided can actually be used to accomplish real change, but only if we act together and only if we use the ability to communicate, to translate our ideas into practice. And it taught me a lot about what journalism can do. That by covering a grassroots movement with all the effort and energy that the mainstream media normally heaps on the elites, we could help connect the dots. We could be part of accelerating ideas and connecting the people to each other in a way that made the push for progress more tangible, not just theoretical.
So on this the six anniversary of the Police Accountability Report, I want to express more than anything gratitude. Gratitude to the people who openly share their stories with us, despite the threat of police retaliation to the guests on our show who talk to us about some of the worst moments in their lives, and the brave souls from small towns to big cities who are willing to push back simply because they know it’s right. I know I’ve been inspired by them. I have seen Stephen Bees inspired by them, and we both understand that independent journalism is wholly dependent upon people being willing to speak to us and share with us and trust us. So please let me say this as my final thought. Thank you, all of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for watching. Thank you for caring, and thank you for being willing to push for knowledge, the truth, and hopefully seeing the best in all of us. Thank you all. I really appreciate you.
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