[Update] Eyes on Cops

The scenes of violence caught on video recently have been a painful reminder of the strained relations between the public and the police in our country.

This friction is not new. What is new is the technology: cameras and smart phones that record and transmit the violence live or within minutes.

In Minnesota, the person who captured the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting was in the car with the victim. In Baton Rouge, the videos were made by bystanders. And in Dallas, the first images we saw of the sniper shootings came from people on the ground, in the crowd. But there’s also an organized movement of people who consider it their jobs to police the police and they, too, are recording. Some people call them “cop watchers.”

In light of recent events we’re revisiting a story we brought to you last year. It’s a look at the cop watching movement in Texas – including in a suburb of Dallas where tensions over the practice already were on the rise.