In this episode we interview Matyos Kidane and Shakeer Rahman two organizers with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a community organization founded in 2011, working to build community power toward abolishing police surveillance. They are rooted in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, based out of the Los Angeles Community Action Network. 

Recently the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition has been thrust into the spotlight due to backlash against their creation of the website watchthewatchers.net, which complies police data from multiple public records requests originally made by journalist Ben Camacho best known for his work with KNOCK-LA. While this so-called controversy is interesting and warrants some debunking of the lies being put forward by LA police, politicians and their allies, we also wanted to use the opportunity to highlight the organizing of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and learn from their process of collective study and how to use state archives, public records requests, community knowledge and analyses of police and local political economy to produce resources for abolitionist movements.

Along the way we talk about how Watch The Watchers has grown out of a longer history of Cop Watch practices and ways that this tool already been used by activists, journalists and community members.

In the show notes we’ll include links to support the work of Stop LAPD Spying, to a toolkit opposing the Robot Dogs being proposed by the LAPD and a link to some examples of their work.

And if you appreciate the work that we do bringing you an assortment of discussions with organizers, activists, scholars and movement veterans on a weekly basis become a patron of the show. We have a goal to add 40 new patrons again this month to help us sustain the work that we do. You can join the amazing folks who make this show possible for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism

Links:

Stop LAPD Spying Coalition (Donation Page)

Toolkit for opposing Robot Dogs in LA (meeting on Friday May 5th)

automatingbanishment.org

Automating Banishment: The Data-Driven Policing of Stolen Land (Haymarket discussion) with Mike Davis and Stop LAPD Spying