The Cop Watchers: Chasing (and Sometimes Trolling) Police in the Name of Liberty
Their camcorders and phones recording, about 10 cop-watchers stand on an embankment between six busy lanes and four gas pumps at an Arlington gas station, wondering why cops keep coming for what looks like a simple traffic stop. Don't all these cops have something better to do, they think, like fighting crime?
Dylan Hollingsworth Cop-watcher Kory Watkins squats and films a traffic stop in Arlington. Is this interfering?
Three Arlington officers get out of their squad cars and form a loose wall between the officer conducting the stop and those recording. "Get back," an officer says. "Get back." The cop-watchers look at each other in confusion. Get back? Why?
Why is there backup here at all? The group of self-appointed police monitors has been driving up and down Arlington's Cooper Street, a stretch of blacktop sidelined by fast-food joints and strip malls, and taping traffic stops for months. There's a script: Listen to the police scanner, drive toward one, park, record and upload the videos to YouTube when the night's over. Repeat.
Sure, cop-watchers have gone off script occasionally. Jacob Cordova tried to make a citizen's arrest of a double-parked officer; Joseph Tye chased down one cop for speeding while not responding to a call, then confronted him in a parking lot. "Shiny pieces of tin" don't grant "extra rights," Tye likes to say, and it's up to those who guard the guardians -- him and his pals -- to hold the Arlington police accountable and make sure they don't infringe on people's rights.
Up until this August night, though, the officers seemed OK with being recorded (the Arlington police chief would tell Fox 4 as much). There were even some friendly conversations, and the watchers soon began to recognize faces and learn names. Tonight, though, someone has rewritten the script.
Cordova keeps his phone at eye level as he records the original officer on scene. For him, there's bad blood there. She wrote him a $180 ticket once for "illegal use of a horn." He still doesn't know why and plans to fight the ticket in court. First that, now she calls backup? What's she trying to do? Why do these cop watches seem to be escalating? Cordova leans over and tells his friend and fellow activist Kory Watkins what he thinks the group should do.
"I say we follow her the rest of the night," he says. "She's the one who'll pull the trigger on us."
Cordova's white, two-door Cadillac is acting up again. He's thinking about replacing the car he had sent with him to Italy while he served in the Air Force, but his dad's will have to do tonight. He pulls into the Home Depot parking lot where a group of cop-watchers waits in an informal circle. It's the last Saturday in August, a warm and buggy night. Six Flags Over Texas is down the road, and Cooper Street, their usual patrol route, is a few turns away. Cordova parks and joins more than 20 people. Big group tonight, he thinks. Must be all the publicity.
The previous Tuesday, Fox 4 aired a report on the group's last cop watch, in which the officer had called for backup. It ended without incident, only hinting at what would await the cop-watchers tonight. The Fox reporter interviewed a former officer who chastised them for what she considered interference. The group considers the report a smear campaign, and to them it only serves to prove that their distrust of the media is well-placed.
One reason the report doesn't sit right is because it didn't say the First Amendment protects filming cops. Unless, of course, those filming interfere. But exactly what constitutes "interference" is a fuzzy area. No hard rule exists for how far cop-watchers have to keep away from the action. Legally, a reasonable distance is what a reasonable person would consider a reasonable distance. The cop-watchers believe they stay on that side of the line, even if they do sometimes toe it.
Cordova started one of the organizations out tonight. He saw videos of the cop-watches Antonio Buehler had in Austin under the name Peaceful Streets Project. Cordova reached out. With his friend Watkins, president of the pro-gun group Open Carry Tarrant County, they went on their first cop-watch as the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project.
The other is Texas Cop Block. Joseph Tye, who confronted the speeding officer, is the administrator on the group's Facebook page. It's one of hundreds of groups around the country affiliated with CopBlock.org, which went live in 2010 and is now run by a former intern at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think-tank. Cop Block is decentralized; anyone can host cop watches under the Cop Block name. There are kids in it for the rush, and then there are the hardcore, such as Tye, who is in it because he believes it's the right thing to do.
Because he sees several first-timers, Cordova addresses the group. He sports a buzz cut and a patchy beard. A Ron Paul 2012 shirt with the sleeves cut off expose his muscular arms. In the circle, he stands across from Watkins. A beanstalk with a face of right angles, Watkins has already put on the fluorescent safety vest many cop-watchers wear so the cops know where they are. He dons a body camera. Standing close to Cordova, Tye wears a blue collared shirt with the Cop Block logo -- a video camera trained on a smiling cop's face -- and an Open Carry Texas hat. He strokes his thick black beard absentmindedly.
Unlike what the media say, Cordova says, his group doesn't interfere with traffic stops. Also, he says, they don't hate cops; they only film to hold them accountable and make sure they don't violate people's rights.
The Arlington Police Department reached out to Cordova and requested a meeting, but, after conferring with Buehler, he declined. He forwarded an email to the department's media relations person that Buehler had drafted, saying the group preferred direct action and working within communities to solve the problem of police abuse. "As such," the email read in part, "the Peaceful Streets project seeks to ensure a safe and secure environment for victims [of police abuse] by refusing to allow law enforcement agencies, officials or their representatives from participating in Peaceful Streets Project actions or events. Further, the Peaceful Streets Project will ensure the trust of these victims of police abuse by not working with or supporting any coalitions involving law enforcement agencies, officials or their representatives acting in their official capacity."
After Cordova's speech, Watkins directs those who aren't driving to download the app that will turn their phones into walkie-talkies as they patrol the Arlington streets. While Tye lived in Weatherford, he hosted small cop watches there, but those in Arlington attract the most people. (Dallas Cop Block consists of one man, Jose Vela, and he has trouble getting others out with him.) A lot of cops here, the group believes, are bad.
Many cop-watchers are also Open Carry activists. (Liberty is popular among intelligent people, Tye would say.) When Arlington passed an ordinance banning handing out political literature at busy intersections, Open Carry Tarrant County sued the city and won. It was a bad law, the cop-watchers feel, but the police still enforced it. If they enforce that, what won't they enforce? If activists didn't fight for that right to hand out pocket Constitutions, what other, bigger rights would the government think it could take away next?
The group figures out seating arrangements, three or four to a vehicle. As usual, Watkins sits shotgun while Cordova drives. A new guy joins Tye and his wife, Bryanne, in their blue sedan. With Cordova leading the caravan, the cop-watchers head off the lot, toward Cooper Street.
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