Original subtitles

Ramsey has just been arrested for filming the police.

Back up. Why are you standing in front of the camera? Sir. Sir, you've got to get...

Get back on that sidewalk. Go back over there and film over there.

They hadn't told me why am I being arrested.

This is my mom's name, Emily.

This was actually my first tattoo.

I remember I was told I wouldn't be able to get tattoos

unless it was mom's name.

So, I went behind my mom's back for Mother's Day

and got her name tattooed, and since then, I've just been addicted to it.

Eyes of a dead man.

A part of my life where I felt like I didn't have no soul,

I didn't have no heart and everything was cold around me.

This is actually a victim to the police brutality stuff.

This signified how cops were killing us.

Ex-gang member Ramsey Orta faces years in jail.

It all started when he shot a video of his friend Eric Garner

being stopped by undercover officers

on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes.

For what?

Every time you see me, you want to mess with me.

I'm tired of it. It stops today.

This guy right here is forcibly trying to lock somebody up.

That day changed my life.

I wish it didn't have to happen this way.

Hold up, hold up. Don't touch me, please.

Do not touch me.

Oh!

Why they doing that to him?

POLICE OFFICER: All right, right, he's down, he's down, he's down.

Lift your hands, buddy. ERIC'S SPEECH IS MUFFLED Put your hands behind your head.

Officer had his knee on Eric's neck like this.

And basically holding him down,

trying to restrain him, while other officers was twisting his arm.

Everybody back up. Back up.

Watching it now is like... It hurts.

I get goose bumps

cos I feel like I could've done a lot more

than just stand there and videotape.

He can't breathe.

They don't even try to take the cuffs of him and give him CPR.

They don't even try to put an oxygen mask over his face.

I mean, they just left him there.

Laying on his side with his eyes rolled back and his mouth open.

And I'm like, "You killed him."

Back up, back up. I was here watching the whole shit.

You watched everything.

You know everything.

I couldn't believe it at first and then...

I went home and took a shower and it hit me like,

"Damn, they just killed my friend."

Two days after a New York City grand jury

cleared a white police officer

in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man,

the protests are growing larger

and spreading the country...

Ramsey's video triggered demonstrations across America.

I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

Hundreds shut down major highways in multiple cities.

For many, including the city's medical adviser,

this was a homicide caught on camera.

I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

Summer, 2016.

Ramsey's video has still not led to any arrests.

But it has inspired a network of people

who use technology to watch the police.

They're taking on the largest force in America,

the NYPD.

Brooklyn, New York City.

Dennis Flores is a government employee by day.

By night, he runs a team that intercepts police radio

to film arrests as they happen.

342 10th Street.

Can you check if that's between 3rd and 4th Avenue?

Let's roll with it.

We want to deter police abuse.

So, if our cameras are out there, it's going to help prevent it

because they know there's extra eyes on them.

These cameras are bad-cop repellent.

While it's legal to film the police,

Dennis has been arrested dozens of times...

..sometimes aggressively.

So, these cops came, grabbed me, handcuffed me

and then body-slammed me here, like about five or six cops.

Slammed me to the floor.

This one police officer grabbed his walkie-talkie

and cracked my head open

as all these other cops came and kicked me, punched me.

And they dragged me out of here

and charged me with assaulting the police.

Now, Dennis never films alone.

He and his team have filmed multiple cases

of what New York's zero-tolerance policing means in practice.

So, this is where Ray Tillery was standing

when he flicked the cigarette onto the street.

The police around him, swarmed him around this entrance.

As we see in the video,

right in here, in front of this dollar pizzeria shop,

he gets arrested.

What? What are these guys trying to do?

Are they trying to handcuff him or what? Turn around, turn around.

Over ten police officers aggressively take him down

for flicking a cigarette in the street,

something that thousands of New Yorkers do every day.

He can't throw a cigarette butt down?

Come on, man.

For every ten people stopped by the NYPD, eight are Black or Hispanic.

Literally, like, the police have a licence to hurt, arrest

and kill people and get away with it.

Nothing happens to them.

Even those who intervene run the risk of arrest.

Sebastian Lemos, he was right here and the police were arresting him.

No! And as they approached,

the mother,

she started telling the cops what you're doing to her son is wrong.

She's six months pregnant.

She has a belly out to here.

You see them struggling with her and he slams her to the floor.

He puts his knees on her back.

She just threw her hands up.

Another woman approaches

and the cop tosses her, flips her over

and she hits the ground and fractures her kneecap.

These are crimes being committed by police officers.

That's why cop watching is effective.

Because here we are keeping a track of all the corrupt cops.

We're making it public to make sure that people know what's going on

and this doesn't just get swept under the rug.

Police officer shot in the shoulder.

Now they've got an investigation of the three individuals.

Two of them have been apprehended. The officer has got shot in the shoulder.

And one individual's still at large.

Anthony Miranda has spent his life in the NYPD.

They're doing of an infrared in heat

to try to locate people, probably in the back-yards.

A senior detective, he's investigated homicides,

organised crime and police corruption.

They shot one cop, they wouldn't hesitate to shoot another.

It's highly unusual

for a police officer to speak out against his own.

But after 20 years of service,

Miranda can no longer keep quiet about the behaviour of the police.

The enforcement against African-Americans and Hispanics

is ten times more than it is against any other community out there.

When cops become abusive is when the they start believing

the mentality that it's us against them.

And that starts from day one in the police academy.

Any police indoctrination that trains officers

to disassociate with the communities they grew up in,

not to identify with the people,

not even sometimes to identify with their own family members.

They have no screening process whatsoever for racism.

They don't do it.

Imagine if the police department can hire somebody

who has a tattoo on his arm of a hanging...

of a black person hanging

and they still qualify to be a New York City police officer.

Have you seen that? Yes.

White people don't get arrested as much.

The criminal justice system doesn't prosecute them as much.

It doesn't charge them

the same way that they charge African-Americans and Hispanics.

There's a total imbalance to the process

that nobody wants to pay attention to.

Miranda is aware that by making allegations of systemic racism,

he's pitting himself against the NYPD.

People say, "Well, these guys are in uniform and they're talking about discrimination.

"These guys are in uniform and they're talking about the abuses that are going on in our community."

These were things that were unheard of, like, you would never do that.

It's like you're taking your life in your own hands.

The Police Department is the biggest gang in New York.

You know, you mess with the Police Department

and the retaliation is direct and absolute.

The NYPD has 36,000 officers...

..and a budget of 5 billion.

It can control every corner of New York.

In multiethnic areas like the Bronx,

the department operates a fleet of mobile observation towers.

These are deployed 24/7 in poor areas.

The whole place is lit up.

It's like... It is a war zone.

It's an occupying force.

Crime rates have fallen to record lows.

But Jose LaSalle, who runs the local Copwatch team,

believes this is because the entire community is under siege.

I'm just filming the lights all around.

Kind of give people an idea of how police has actually took over

these projects in the Bronx.

I mean, there's no problem having police, you know, around.

My problem is when they just don't follow the proper procedures

and protocols and take this to a point

where they just become more of a harassment.

Suddenly, Jose intercepts a police request for backup

on a possible domestic violence incident

and disappears down the road.

Jose films as two officers lead a vocal but handcuffed man

to their vehicle.

But I didn't do nothing. [INAUDIBLE SPEECH]

Did I hit you? Did I hit you?

He's walking on his own to the car.

By the time he reaches the police station,

multiple officers are carrying him in.

Jose's team seek legal advice.

They're concerned about the way events are unfolding.

We ran over, got over here in time to catch him

being pulled out of the van like a fricking sack of potatoes,

completely inert.

What the police officer said that, "He hit his wife,

"so we can do whatever the fuck we want with him."

And then ten minutes later,

an ambulance is called and they brought in a stretcher,

so we're waiting to see what the story is.

I'm hoping that he's alive.

We have some video here of him being pulled into the precinct.

Wow.

We don't know what happened to this man.

But the cop watchers have their suspicions.

So, somewhere along inside that van,

this black male got either knocked out,

beat up by police to the point where he was unconscious.

They're saying that they have the right to be the judge,

jury and executioner, you know what I'm saying, because he hit a woman.

Cos, obviously, domestic violence is serious.

And that's why there's a court system,

you know, why there's a process.

You get locked up, you go to court, you see the judge.

Their only job is to arrest people.

Just as the team fears the worst, there's an unexpected development.

Oh, they're bringing him out.

They're taking him to the hospital.

Excuse me, sir, are you OK? Excuse me, excuse me. Excuse me. I want to know if that man's OK.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you OK, sir? Stay here.

Sir, are you OK?

Sir, are you OK?

Back up, sir, back up, back up. Sir, are you OK?

Why do I have to back up?

Because we need ample space over here, OK?

You have ample space. Why are you standing in front of my camera?

Back up. Why are you standing in front of the camera? Sir. I've given you space.

There's no cars coming, sir. I want to know that man's OK. You're going to get hit by a car.

POLICE: He's not complaining. He has to go to Lincoln. That's it. OK?

The police seem to have changed their story.

They're no longer mentioning domestic violence.

Now they're saying that the guy in there is emotionally disturbed,

which is another way to cover

why they had to be so aggressive with him.

The police refuse to give out the man's name,

so the cop watchers were unable to find out what happened to him.

What is this?

Cop watcher Kim Ortiz thinks it's only a matter of time

before her sons are stopped by the police.

You know that if a police officer stops you,

you need to be very, very careful, right?

Yeah. You need to not put your hands to your side, right?

And you just ask them, "Am I free to go?"

Or, erm...

Am I being detained?

Detained, all right.

Say it, so, "Am I free to go?"

Am I free to go or I'm being... I'm being detained?

Excuse me, sir, what are you doing here?

Can I talk to you for a second?

Er, yeah.

That's not what you're going to say! No. No!

No.

And if they say you're being detained?

I just need to wait there for a minute.

You need to wait there

and then when you get a chance to call Mommy, you call Mommy.

OK.

OK?

OK.

My nine-year-old's on the autism spectrum.

Aiden is very respectful.

Aiden is very peaceful.

But he won't understand, you know, their aggressive,

jump-out-the-car tactics, with guns in faces.

He will not understand that.

His mind is not equipped to understand that in that way.

And police aren't equipped to deal with people in that way,

so I'm terrified,

especially for Aiden, because of that and, erm...

so I fight and, you know, hopefully, I fight enough that they don't have to march,

that they don't have to go through all of this.

Hopefully, something changes, but, you know, the climate is just...

It's just heartbreaking.

Let me try.

Despite working full-time,

and raising her sons as a single parent...

Kim cop watches every single week

to make sure people know their rights.

Do you consent to that search, sir?

And to gather evidence when the police step out of line.

We can get you this video.

You do not have to consent to a search.

Say, "I do not consent to this search."

I don't consent to this search. I've got this on film.

He does not consent to a search.

So guess what's going to happen when you get to court.

This video? Bye-bye.

So, I know I come across as very aggressive and very militant,

and I am and I'm unapologetic about it, because, like, day-to-day

I see police harass people and, you know, it's every day.

Like, I can't go one day without seeing someone's rights

violated by police officers.

And when you try to call them out on it,

it's like, "Who are you to talk to me about what I'm doing?

Like, "Obey me."

So, yeah, I'm angry, yeah.

I'm aggressive, yes. I'm militant.

Because I've been dealing with this shit for a long time now.

OFFICER: Stay back.

I'm taking one step back. I'm a reasonable distance.

You keep your hands away from me.

I'm not the one.

Yeah. I'm not the one.

FROM VIDEO: Yo, what's the issue?

Record that.

You need to get out of... I work for Copwatch.

Get out of the street. Go on the sidewalk.

Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the death of Eric Garner,

has been filming the police ever since.

I told you to stay on the sidewalk. I told you to stay on the sidewalk.

But when he is arrested filming a traffic stop,

his wife Bella takes over.

We are on Baruch and Halston.

Ramsey has just been arrested for standing off of the sidewalk

while filming the police arrest someone else.

Jesus fucking Christ.

With Ramsey behind bars, his wife Bella alerts other cop watchers.

Fuck this world, man. Yeah.

The charges are obstruction of a government agent

and disorderly conduct.

Right, I'm like, that's fucking bullshit.

I mean, it's been a crazy week.

You know? To hear that he got arrested for filming cops.

Once again.

You know?

My understanding, he was charged with jaywalking.

You want your other shoelace? SHE LAUGHS

Doing my job.

After five hours in custody,

and convinced he's done nothing wrong, Ramsey is released.

Before I approach any situation,

I'm like, "Yo, my name is Ramsey Orta. I work with Copwatch.

"I got video footage of everything that went on.

"Don't try to falsify reports."

Man, I think you're crazy still filming the police.

For Ramsey, the battle with the NYPD is personal.

He doesn't want the death of his friend

Eric Garner to count for nothing.

I'm not going to say they won by taking my friend.

But they won in a sense to show that they don't give a fuck.

But now it's my turn.

My main goal is to put pressure on cops.

Once they see camera in somebody's hand or a phone in somebody's hand,

they're quick to think twice, like, "Oh, shit,

"I can't do what I wanted to do."

For Ramsey, the stakes couldn't be higher.

He has a criminal past.

And since his video exposing the NYPD went viral,

he has been arrested in multiple undercover sting operations.

Altogether, I have five bail bonds.

Empire is covering the gun charge,

cos that was the first case that I caught behind the video.

And allegations I was selling drugs to an undercover.

His family is helping pay his bail,

and each week he has to check in at this bail bond office.

The names that I'm putting back on the list, it's two cases.

If my grandmother's on three it's cos she signed for that other two.

OK.

Ramsay's lawyers, Ken Perry and Will Aronin,

believe these latest arrests are bogus,

designed to discredit Ramsey.

He doesn't have a clean record.

But that has nothing to do with these cases.

It does feel that they had it in for someone.

And I do think that had he not filmed this video, we would

not be in this situation defending him on six or seven different cases.

It was more like, "OK, this guy is getting fucked completely."

Lawyers Aronin and Perry

specialise in cases of alleged police abuse.

So, tell me what happened.

FROM PHONE: Well, first off...

Increasingly they are using Copwatch material in their court battles

with the NYPD.

Keep on going.

Today, they are meeting Christian Conyers.

It's amazing how lucky it is that this was all on video.

As you can see on tape, I didn't commit any crime.

This is me right here.

He is facing charges of resisting arrest

after cycling into a demo.

But footage shot by cop watchers could be key to his defence.

Of course, I looked, you know, to see what was going on,

but this is where I live.

I have every right to be here.

That's when he grabbed me. I had to stand up.

If I didn't stand up, I would have fell off the bike.

While this was going on, officers are kicking my legs.

They're trying to push you down. They're pushing me down on the floor.

Let's...from the start for a second.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

You can see me under here.

And there you are there.

You have seven guys as we counted, maybe more on top of you now.

What are you saying at that point?

At that point, I'm trying to tell them,

"I can breathe, I can't breathe!"

I'm against the ground with three or four different officers on my back.

How am I supposed to breathe?

I regard I didn't get a chance to tell any story.

I wound up spending the night in the hospital. Just madness, man.

Christian will be in court in a few days

and it's taking its toll on his family.

My son doesn't even look at the police the same now.

He shouldn't live in a place in which he fears the people

that are supposed to serve and protect him.

You're going to go to court? Yeah, me and Mommy got to go to court.

Just in case anything happens, Mommy is going to come with me.

I mean, I don't think anything is going to happen

but in the event that it does, it would be better

for Mommy to know, because the courts are not going to call

and tell Mommy that they are remanding me or anything like that.

The gulf between cop watchers and the NYPD has never been greater.

We're here tonight... ALL: We're here tonight.

Because black lives matter. ALL: Because black lives matter.

Each week, they meet to remember a person of colour who's

died at the hands of the police.

Every Monday for over a year, we've been highlighting different cases of

police brutality and unfortunately we're not running out of names.

They're going to shut down the streets, they're going to do

some civil disobedience to draw attention to the issue.

REPORTER: Are they going to get arrested?

Most likely some of them will.

What do we want? ALL: Justice. And when do we want it? ALL: Now.

What do we want? ALL: Justice. And when do we want it? ALL: Now.

And if we don't get it? ALL: Shut it down.

There is some brave people willing to

put their lives at the hands of the police, you know?

All I can do is watch their backs and film as much as I'm able to do.

ALL: Shut it down. And if we don't get it? ALL: Shut it down.

If we don't get it? ALL: Shut it down.

These two sides now view each other with complete hostility.

But while you're shopping... ALL: But while you're shopping.

Black people are dying. ALL: Black people are dying.

By the hands of the police. ALL: By the hands of the police.

Put your fist in the air. ALL: Put your fist in the air.

ALL: Our lives matter. Black lives matter.

Black lives matter. ALL: Black lives matter.

Rather than target the main demonstration,

the police single out one of the cop watchers they know well.

Go back and film over there.

This is the 75th time Dennis has been arrested.

You've got to get back in your little space.

REPORTER: What's happened, Dennis?

There are arresting me. I have no clue.

I have no idea why they are arresting me.

They haven't told me why I'm being arrested.

Sir, please step back on the sidewalk. You're on the street.

The more we report of your abuse, the more people win,

the more we win.

Three, six, seven cops on somebody who was walking on the crosswalk?

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.

All: It is our duty to fight for our freedom.

It is our duty to win. ALL: It is our duty to win.

We must love and support each other.

ALL: We must love and support each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

ALL: We have nothing to lose but our chains.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Dennis is driven to the nearest police station for processing...

..but just two hours later, he's released on bail.

Look what they gave me.

They locked me up, kept me in there for an hour and they gave me

a ticket for disorderly conduct, because they claim that

I was crossing the street when there was a red light.

Luckily for me, I videotaped the entire thing

as I crossed the street.

I made sure I documented the traffic signal.

I don't even jaywalk when I cop watch.

And I recorded myself being stopped in the middle of the street when

it was still my turn to cross and I was arrested for doing nothing.

Kim is in court today.

Six months ago, she was also arrested when filming the police.

He wasn't doing anything!

REPORTER: Are you nervous about today? No, I'm not nervous.

I have video evidence that it was a completely bogus arrest.

I'm not nervous at all. If anything, it's just inconvenient that

I have to keep taking time out to keep doing this and I'm not

going to fall for this bogus charge just because that's what they want.

But when Kim's case is called,

the arresting officer doesn't turn up and her trial is postponed.

She believes it's part of a deliberate strategy

to wear cop watchers down.

The irony, I think, is that had I not shown up, I would have had

a warrant for my arrest, but he can come as he pleases

or not come at all.

I mean, let's be perfectly honest.

You know, this is a white supremacist country.

The laws, the courts, the police, everything runs on white

supremacy, so you have the cards stacked against you.

If you're a person of colour, you have the cards stacked against you.

If you're a poor person, you have the cards stacked against you.

If you're a woman of colour.

REPORTER: What about people who say you're exaggerating?

I would ask those people to come and sit down and I would ask

those people to witness what we witness all the time.

I would also be insulted because someone that would say I'm

exaggerating is someone that probably lives in the suburbs

and has no idea the issues that I'm talking about,

because it doesn't affect or pertain to them.

Is there a reason behind all these arrests

and seemingly heavy-handed tactics?

One serving NYPD officer with 17 years' experience

is prepared to speak out.

This was actually my graduation, one of my graduation jackets.

Julio Diaz is president of New York's

Latino Officers Association.

REPORTER: When was your graduation? 1999.

He's now bringing a class action lawsuit against the NYPD

claiming the existence of secret and illegal arrest quotas.

The police department will retaliate against you

if they think you're saying something they don't like.

Quotas is something that they don't want people to know about.

If you put a system now that tells police officers to go out there

and go stop people and here's a number and if you don't come back

with that number, you're going to be disciplined,

you're going to cause some problems with the police department,

with some police officers because they might not know the balance now.

They might go, "OK, I've got to get this at all costs."

The minority communities, Latino you African American communities

are being targeted as enforcement strategy by the NYPD.

Who are you going to target more?

The poor people, the people who are not going to sue you,

the people who're not going to fight back, the people

that you know are not going to call a politician to come after you?

These are the people that are getting targeted.

These allegations that the NYPD aggressively pursue arrest targets

were recently put to Police Commissioner Bratton.

Bullshit! Bullshit is my response to that. Quite clearly.

If any of my cops out there still think we're pushing for the

summonses, etc, I'm sorry, we're pushing to reduce crime.

Despite this official denial,

Detective Miranda is adamant quotas not only exist

but were a key factor in the arrest of Eric Garner.

They went out here to put his ass in jail for something that he

didn't do.

To constitute the sale,

they had to have seen the exchange of money and the cigarettes.

Their own reports after the incident, they never said that they

saw an actual exchange between Eric Gardner and anybody else.

So if that was the premise in why you stopped him,

your stop was illegal. Your approach to him was illegal

and you should never have approached him to begin with.

I am minding my business, officer. I'm minding my business.

Please, just leave me alone.

He said, "These guys are targeting me,

"they're planting evidence on me."

Are you seemingly wanting to mess with me? I'm tired of it.

According to Miranda, not only were the detectives aiming to hit

their quota, they were also punishing Eric for daring

to complain about harassment.

Prior to this, he's already made allegations against a team

at Staten Island. The same officers that they had planted evidence

on him and falsely arresting him and accusing him of a crime.

Don't touch me! BLEEP

I can't breathe! I can't breathe!

To establish that they retaliated against him was easy

for any federal investigator,

anybody with authority and oversight.

The City Council, all these people who held the hearings, nobody

asked the right questions because they didn't want the right answers.

We should all be up in arms.

Two years on and people in the community are still angry.

They cannot understand why the police have not

been held accountable.

You telling the true story? Are you sure?

If it can happen to him, it can happen to my sons, you know,

my sisters, my brothers and it's been happening.

To find out later when it came out and it said

he was not going to be prosecuted, the police officer, I lost it.

ALL: The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

For many New Yorkers, the fact the officers involved in the chokehold

death of Eric Garner face no charges while Ramsey Orta,

the man who filmed it all, faces years in jail,

shows the imbalance in the system.

ALL: The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

Ramsey knows we've had this conversation with him

very seriously many, many times.

This case has to be resolved at some point.

Do I expect that all the police officers will be saying nothing

but all the truth? No.

I assume the police officers are going to be lying on the stand

to get done what they want,

to get done what they think is in their interest.

If everything went wrong, 118 years maximum.

He's theoretically facing 118 years.

For some, Ramsey is a career criminal hiding behind allegations

of NYPD brutality.

To others, he's a hero.

I exposed, literally, the modern day lynching.

That's what happened. They choked him to death.

I don't regret it but I don't want to be dealing with this shit.

I'm about to go give up some time for my life for taking a video.

It's going to be a rough ride,

but hopefully I've got my head on my shoulders

by the time I get in there.

REPORTER: What's the worst it can be now? What's the worst? Death.

Pretty much.

You'll probably be doing me a favour because I haven't got to go

through this bullshit that I'm going through now.

I had a great career.

I did, I had a great career.

For Detective Miranda, the criminal justice system is out of control.

He's seen the prison population of America increase by

2 million people and maintains each arrest,

trial and conviction helps hit a financial target.

People make money from this whole process.

This is a moneymaking system.

The summons generate income, the arrests generate an entire system.

When you arrest somebody, everybody is making money.

The courts make money, the jails make money,

the court officers make money, the correction officers make money.

It's a money generating system that nobody wants to correct

the imbalance, because if you make it fair,

then there won't be as much income in the system.

That's just the reality of it.

The city won't make the same amount of money.

I think cop watching should be everybody.

I think everybody who owns a camera now,

everyone who owns a cellphone should be a part of Copwatch.

Every time you see something going on, you should take the picture.

Despite the cop watcher's video,

Christian Conyers is back in court today.

If convicted, he faces a one-year sentence.

Go in there and do what you got to do today, man.

Behave and do a good job today. All right? No complaints, all right?

All right? OK.

See you later. Who's going to get me from school today? Huh?

Who's going to pick me up from school today?

Either me or Mommy should be able to pick you up. All right?

If anything, at the most, Grandpa.

It'll probably be me and Mommy, all right?

I love you. See you later.

Go ahead, man.

This seems a community more divided than united by the police.

This is the view from my son's bedroom. Police sitting right here.

They're here every day, day and night 24/7.

Think about it. They're right here.

It's almost like an invasion of your privacy.

It's supposed to be New York City public housing, you know?

But when you come home, they sit right outside your window.

You're not free.

Who's anyone to say that you're free walking around in New York City

or anywhere in America right now?

Especially being a black man.