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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 09/23/09 Peoples' Justice Launches Outreach and Ad Campaign to Encourage Cop Watch and Education About New Yorkers' Rights The NYC-wide coalition, Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability(PJ), has launched an outreach campaign encouraging community-based organizing to prevent police violence in Washington Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick. The components of the campaign include billboard advertisements encouraging residents to get involved with Cop Watch, as well as a series of murals aimed at educating community members about their rights when confronted by law enforcement officers. The billboard ads feature a silhouette image of police violence being observed and documented by community-empowered residents armed with video cameras and cellular phones. The intention of the ads is to inform community residents that observing police activity is legal and can help in deterring abuse, as well as provide critical evidence in cases of police brutality. The ads are also meant to generate interest in forming coordinated Cop Watch teams of residents from neighborhoods that see disproportionate levels of police violence. "Cop Watch provides community members with a way to use their legal rights to observe and record police activities and hold law enforcement accountable," says Loyda Colon, coordinator of Peoples' Justice and Director of the Justice Committee (thejusticecommitte.org). "Too often in low-income communities of color, the police think they can act with impunity and abuse their power by perpetrating verbal, physical and sexual violence against community members, without legal cause. Peoples' Justice is asking New Yorkers to stand up and help turn this around by exercising their legal right to organize and watch the police." Peoples' Justice offers Cop Watch and Know Your Rights Trainings to groups interested in starting Cop Watch teams in their neighborhoods. About Peoples' Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability: Peoples' Justice is a coalition of NYC-based grassroots organizations that have joined forces towin community control and police accountability. 
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In order to participate in the Cop Watch Network, teams should: - Agree to the PJ city-wide goals of Cop Watch as stated below;
- Attend a PJ Cop Watch training and agree with the main points;
- Maintain a goal of conducting Cop Watch at least 6 times a year;
- Use PJ Know Your Rights text (though not necessarily the PJ pamphlet) that includes information about trans rights and immigration rights;
- Agree to document abuses by cops of all communities without discrimination based on race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, etc; and
- Report-back to the PJ Cop Watch coordinating body and share data and footage collected at quarterly meetings (unless there is an emergency or teams want to send info earlier.)
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To help achieve our goal of creating a city-wide culture of Cop Watch: We have created a network open to organizations and ad-hoc groups of community members to join, where they can obtain training, resources and support to conduct Cop Watch in their communities. These formations are called "network teams" or "teams." The network includes Peoples' Justice (PJ)-member organizations and non PJ-member organizations and groups that have been trained to conduct Cop Watch by PJ. Teams must attend a PJ Cop Watch Training prior to joining the network. Network teams must agree to the PJ Cop Watch Network guidelines and protocol (see above.) The purpose is not to conduct Cop Watch only once, but rather to create a sustained presence in our communities. Considering this, network teams should commit to conducting Cop Watch at least 6 times in a year. Part of the purpose of Cop Watch is to be visible to our community members and to the NYPD. By identifying ourselves, our community members will not only know who we are, but we will also demonstrate an organized and unified resistance to police misconduct and brutality. Therefore, teams should wear Cop Watch buttons or clothing and distribute Know Your Rights and Cop Watch materials. We encourage you to use and disseminate the material produced by Peoples' Justice, though this is not always necessary. To help achieve our goals of sharing information and holding the police accountable, network teams should provide report-backs and share information, data and footage with the PJ Cop Watch Network Coordinating Body. |
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COP WATCH NETWORK 
