Redwood Curtain CopWatch, based in the north coast of California, is part of a larger movement of self organized CopWatch groups throughout the US. Our local efforts seek to intervene in the drastic rise of the presence, militarization, and violence of the police, and build support networks based on self-determination, caring, and concrete needs.
posse comitatus act
Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force
Submitted by copwatch on Wed, 07/06/2011 - 9:07amAlterNet / By Rania Khalek July 5, 2011
The federal government has supplied local police departments with military uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, and training. 
Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family.
Pentagon Wants to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in Communities Throughout U.S.
Submitted by copwatch on Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:44amThe Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.
By Matthew Rothschild, August 12, 2009
http://www.progressive.org/wx081209b.html
The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster.
This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
