It's getting harder to find Orange County activists whose work isn't funded by grant money or run by self-appointed Great Brown Hopes. CopWatch Santa Ana, on the other hand, keeps it grassroots and gritty. The group believes in filming the police, but its protest against SanTana's finest doesn't stop there. Every checkpoint the cops conduct in the city can expect activists on sidewalks warning drivers with “Reten” (“Checkpoint” in habla) signs to steer clear. Frustrating la chota further, whenever there's an officer-involved shooting, CopWatch Santa Ana dispatches to the scene with smartphone cameras in hand, recording everything. Funding its activism by selling increasingly popular silkscreened “FTP” T-shirts (you can guess what the acronym stands for), the group hosts encuentros imagining a post-police state future. Sure, their rhetoric pushes the boundaries, but no group active in OC pushes the buttons of the boys in blue more.
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