Stumbling upon the Copwatch website researching police activity in and around Sacramento I emailed Josh Cadji about some cop problems I had been having in Folsom. He suggested I file a complaint, assuming enough of these will lead to a review of the police officer. I didn’t, it sounded futile.

Police officers undo themselves by going over the cliff, getting drunk and fighting in public, crashing their cars high on barbiturates into a Starbucks at 9 am, or funneling raunchy pornographic films of children to some freakish online perverts.

Turns out Cadji started Sacramento Copwatch a couple months ago in August and is trying to get the word out enough to get “shifts” going on in Sacramento.

Copwatch originally began in 1990 in Berkeley as an all volunteer group of individuals to monitor police in hopes to reduce police violence, and educate the community on their rights.

Cadji a young believer of honesty and power checking, started Copwatch Sacramento because, “Like any other city to have people within the community come together to monitor and observe police behavior in hopes of keeping the streets safe from violence and injustice.”

Given the recent hubbub with the homeless here in Sacramento being shuffled from the banks of the river to abandon fields to a shelter at Cal Expo which was nothing more than a transparent media stunt for our great leader KJ, the homeless have been repeatedly targeted and arrested by our boys in blue.

Now they’re being arrested for camping violations. An easy target to facilitate gentrification they lack money, power, and representation.

According to Cadji in an e-mail, “homeless people are most vulnerable to rights abuse and physical violence on behalf of the cops…they need people out there who can watch the police and make sure that they are not doing anything illegal…as the police try to ensure that we don’t do anything illegal.”

Cadji invited me to participate in the first Copwatch mission Friday night. Joining the two man team we took off at dusk from Temple Coffee, without a police scanner or much of a plan other than walking around K St. and talking to people about Copwatch.

The leader of the pack Cadji was carrying around a backpack and wearing a black and white Copwatch shirt. I personally thought this was bringing too much attention to the three of us…I didn’t say anything about it.

This isn’t going to separate us from any other pedestrian on K St. sure as hell not going to help us if we find our selves in trouble. Being just another guy has gotten me out of some sticky shit, it’s just my M.O. these days.

As full of advice as Cadji was there is a huge difference between study and practice, what to do and what not to do. Cadji, “One of the main things is to not interfere.”

Friday night, it was dark, and the weirdoes were coming out. Copwatch’s chance to tell the community it cares about it. We were armed with a video camera, in a part of town that no one goes to at night, a part of town that last saw its glory days in the 90’s.

As we are walking on K St. a Sacramento Police Officer pulls up on the sidewalk and puts a black male in his car while conversing with the light rail security about the situation. The two copwatchers took off guns a blazin’ video camera out.

I stayed across the street pretending to be inconspicuous, talking with the local flavor on the bench. I didn’t want to have anything to do with being that close to authority on a Friday night, surrounded by night dwellers and the stench of desperation and cigarette smoke. Things could get ugly, and no video camera was going to do us any good to protect us from such standard operation turned volatile.

The security guard was yelling at the copwatchers to turn the camera off they yelled back and refused, slight bickering went back and forth. The police officer gave scant recognition to the Copwatchers as he put the black male in his squad car.

Four ladies of the light rail patronage approached my bench. They each pulled a cigarette out lit ‘em and began,
“What’s going on?”
“They had that kid all jacked up.”
“They had ‘em jacked up why?’
“Ahh dunno.”
“And those kids is video taping it, ha.”
“The police don’t like it when you video tape em.”

The two copwatchers put on reflective green vests for some reason and continued to film. The police officer let the male go citing him for a light rail infraction. The two copwatchers followed him down the street. I waited.

The copwatchers met back up with me at my bench and started passing out the green flyers for Copwatch to the ladies sitting there and explained why they were filming and what their mission was here in Sacramento. They seemed enthused.

We decided to head down K St. and saw the security guard, Cadji introduced himself and the Copwatch entity.
“I don’t care! I’m just doing my job. I don’t care what you are.”
This went nowhere fast, and we kept on.

We headed to the intersection of the Hard Rock café on K St. The streets looked run down, cyclone fence everywhere, no lights, and that hotel that all the pervs from Megan’s law register at is right next door. We approached a group of probably ten black males in their late teens early twenties, shooting craps in the dark in a piss smelling cove of rotted plywood.

They were decked in fancy obnoxious sweaters with all the razzle-tazzle you can fit on a sweater. I tried to thread the needle while the Copwatchers introduced themselves. I was thinking to myself these guys aren’t going to give a half a shit about Copwatch.

They kept talking requiring our attention, I’m thinking these guys are sizing us up. They kept talking about how they’re all on parole and how they’re going to shoot a cop if they come to their house. One kid lifted up his shirt boasting of a firearm in his waist, sans firearm.

We began walking away, “Second place! What’s that supposed to mean?”

Super… here we go.

Clint the cameraman, “What?”
“You said second place what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t say second place. Hold up listen. I didn’t say second place why would I say that?”
The situation was only defused by us walking away, luckily that’s all we had to do.

What does that even mean and why would that guy get pissed about that? I don’t know but I’m not shooting craps in the dark with piss smells abound. I was immediately less sympathetic to these thugs and this type of needless aggression.

We began making our way across the street to the Hard Rock and the Greyhound station. We got to an intersection and it was Friday and I needed a beer and some food, and that needed to happen quick. I split from the two, who were going to continue the journey of policing the police. I haven’t heard from them since.

Sacramento Copwatch currently has four volunteers and is looking for more. There will be more Copwatch shifts usually on Friday nights and “know your rights” training in the future if anyone is interested. Please contact Josh Cadji at saccopwatch@yahoo.com. Or for more information please take a gander at the website, http://saccopwatch.wordpress.com

Justin Smith is a freelance journlaist based in Sacramento. He can be reached at justinsmiths@gmail.com