By Antonio D. French
Filed Sunday, January 1 at 9:18 PM
The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is planning to help north St. Louis residents protect themselves from the police.
Starting this summer, the ACLU will be training residents of Fairground Park neighborhood in the 21st Ward to use video cameras to capture instances of police abuse.
This story was first reported Saturday on the Post-Dispatch's website. This first of its kind program is getting national notice though. On Sunday, the high-traffic Drudge Report had a link to the story. The story has also been discussed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.
It is worth noting that in the Post's story, while SLPD Chief Joe Mokwa and Sgt. Kevin Ahlbrand, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, represented the view of the police, and Brenda Jones and Redditt Hudson represented the view of the ACLU (described as an "activist group"), the view of residents of Fairground Park was not represented -- despite apparently being so routinely victimized by St. Louis police officers to warrant such a program of citizen activism.
1 Comments:
Having just gotten back from Chicago, which now sports a number of police surveillance cameras in "troubled" neighborhoods (each one complete with an absolutely unmissable bright blue strobe light on top, to make sure that passers-through are aware that they're in an official ghetto and they should keep them car doors locked or stay on the El [as appropriate] and should not spend time or money in the area), I find it particularly interesting (and kind of gratifying) that someone's making sure that such surveillance works in the other direction, too.
9:14 PM, January 03, 2006
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