Lights, camera, police!
Citizen filming catches steam in Boston
The nationwide push to catch police encounters with the public on camera is sprouting too in Boston, where a fledgling “copwatch” group says it’s building its ranks, holding training sessions and compiling film on Hub cops.
“We’re not advocating for anyone to interfere with police. We’re advocating for people to exercise their constitutional rights,” said Eric Martin, a 29-year-old Jamaica Plain resident who has helped organize Boston CopWatch.
“Our footprint is pretty small. The bigger impact we want to have is to empower people,” Martin said, estimating a “few dozen” have been involved at various points since the group launched in March. “Hopefully you’re not witnessing anything that is alarming. But as we’ve seen in Chelsea, Medford and Boston, that does happen.”
With the help of the ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild, the Hub group held a legal training session in May in Roxbury, where organizers say roughly 100 people turned out.
The Herald reported yesterday that a national cop-watching website is working on a new app that would broadcast citizen cellphone videos of police encounters as they happen.
The debate around the public filming of police, which is protected legally, has taken on a renewed focus in Boston, where the Herald reported that police Commissioner William B. Evans has called for regulations around how people record interactions with cops.
Such a proposal, including regulating how far a video-taker could stand from police, got a tepid reception from Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who said it would be “very hard” to legislate.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo declined comment yesterday, and Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg said he wants a “broader” discussion on the issue.
“Having video documentation can be helpful as we have seen in recent months,” the Amherst Democrat said in a statement. “The use of video has become much more widespread and it is time to have a broader policy conversation about how this is accomplished while protecting public safety officials as well as the general public.”