20 May
2015
Posted in: Blog Post
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WeCopwatch and Anti-Media distance themselves from Cop Block

Cop Block is a largely libertarian police accountability organization that was an initial supporter of the Peaceful Streets Project. From the beginning, many members of Cop Block (especially Pete Eyre) supported the Peaceful Streets Project. Their initial support was very helpful in allowing us to spread awareness of our efforts to take on police abuse, corruption, crime, and misconduct in Austin and in select other cities. However, in the past few years both the Peaceful Streets Project and Cop Block have changed in some pretty remarkable ways.

First, the Peaceful Streets Project was started with a vision of helping to bring about a society free of state-sponsored institutionalized violence. Never were we about making friends with the police, nor were we very concerned about non-state violence. Although some of the lead organizers wanted to, as an organization we deliberately shied away from many of the social factors that help feed aggressive and violent policing, as well as the social factors that helped feed violence in the streets. In particular, we avoided issues of race and gender. Our willingness to stand up to the police state while ignoring racism and misogyny allowed many unsavory people to rally around us. Many of those people; who were eager to focus on DUI checkpoints, marijuana laws, and SWAT raids; surprised us when they inexplicably but vigorously rallied behind white people who killed unarmed black people. This became most obvious in their rabid support of George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin in 2012.

By 2013, Antonio Buehler began to acknowledge more and more what co-founders Harold Gray, John Bush, and especially Kaja Tretjak had been concerned about when it came to non-state forms of oppression. Buehler used his position of relative influence to begin speaking out about issues of race and gender, and soon found that many of the followers of Peaceful Streets Project were attacking him. Many supporters encouraged him to disregard these issues in order to keep harmony among police accountability activists, but Buehler had come to recognize that opposition to only state oppression, and not the social oppression that helps fuel the ability of the state to harm people, was a fool’s errand. The police are a problem only to the extent that the structures and hierarchies in our society allow them to be.

Things came to a head later in 2013 when Bush called out a homophobic facebook post, and then Buehler called out some racist and sexist facebook posts. This brought out vicious attacks from many who were at the intersection of some or all of the following groups: Cop Block, anarchocapitalists, Men’s Rights Movement, and Neoconfederates. One semi-popular libertarian blogger named Christopher Cantwell led the charge against the “White Knight,” “Social Justice Warriors” who dared to take offense at overt forms of bigotry. Soon, Buehler had hundreds of racist and sexist people attacking him for taking a stand against racism and sexism. Buehler responded by disassociating with everyone who was willing to associate with Cantwell, and this included Cop Block founder Ademo Freeman and many other members of Cop Block. Buehler was also forced to sever ties with people who had set up Peaceful Street Project facebook pages in various parts of the country.

Since then, the Peaceful Streets Project has gone to great lengths to acknowledge how bigotry helps fuel oppression, and how we (as a largely white male group) can use our privilege to help undermine that oppression. We have sought out other groups that better reflect the populations being most abused by police (such as the Austin Justice Coalition) so that we can ally with them and support them in the struggle. Further, we are much more proactive in calling out bigoted behavior within our group, as we recognize that wonderful contributors had left the Peaceful Streets Project in the early years because it had previously been an unsafe space for them.

Cop Block, however, seems to be going in the opposite direction. Instead of calling out bigotry in the ranks, they have tended to ignore it. While Cop Block claims that as a decentralized organization they cannot control the actions of their members, they do allow unilateral decisions if those decisions are made by the founder, Freeman. Further, while they claim they cannot do much of anything about the bigots in their ranks, as libertarians and anarchists they know very well the power of ostracism. Instead of ostracizing the bigots, they choose to embrace bigots such as Cantwell. And while they may try to claim that they don’t concern themselves with social oppression, and only state oppression, many members of Cop Block became silent when it came to the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, and they instead focused all of their outrage on people who rioted or looted in response to police executing unarmed people.

In recent days it has come to our attention that Ademo Freeman has gone completely off the rails. There is plenty of information circulating on the web about some extraordinarily disgusting behavior that has personally harmed individuals who did not seek to harm him, that we will not rehash here. WeCopwatch and Anti-Media, both of who were collaborating with Cop Block, have publicly distanced themselves from the organization. We commend them for doing so. Fighting the police state and holding police accountable cannot be done if we don’t hold each other accountable, first. We hope that other groups will do the same, and that the many decent people in Cop Block will push the bigots out of the organization.

At Peaceful Streets Project we are less concerned about what happens on the internet than we are what happens in the street. We look forward to continuing to engage in direct action tactics that will help change the culture of society. We look forward to continuing to partner with organizations who want to end the police state – and who are willing to be smart enough to strike out against all forms of oppression that stand in the way.

And yes, we also distance ourselves from Cop Block.

WeCopwatch statement: http://wecopwatch.org/wecopwatch-cuts-ties-with-copblock-org/
Anti-Media statement: http://theantimedia.org/behind-our-decision-to-leave-cop-block/

17 Comments

  • If WeCopwatch is distancing themselves from Cop Block, why are all of the Facebook posts identical? They share the same links not far apart with identical text.

    • They’re not identical.

  • “Fighting the police state and holding police accountable cannot be done if we don’t hold each other accountable, first. We hope that other groups will do the same, and that the many decent people in Cop Block will push the bigots out of the organization.”

    Question: Does accountability = ostracization?

    I don’t have an answer — I think sometimes yes and no. But I also hope that the decent people will try to educate the bigots before expelling them. That’s one thing that decent white people (hopefully I am one) can do, rather than just expelling indecent white people (who will continue to make trouble for people of color.)

    • We have personally tried to educate the bigots of Cop Block. At what point does one finally give up because of the harm they are doing? They had no desire to change.

    • We’ve tried many times to call out this behavior in the police accountability movement (e.g., Cop Block) before making this move.

  • As a Libertarian and as a member of South Florida Cop Watch, it deeply both saddens
    and angers me to see this despicable behavior carried out by Adam Mueller/Ademo
    Freeman; who claims to be Libertarian, yet he violates every key tenet of the
    Libertarian platform, including the Non-Aggression Principle. Also, to see these individuals
    that allow this foolishness and wrong continue unchecked are just as guilty pertaining to
    all of this evil being carried out by Ademo.

    I fully support the decision to #BlockCopBlock and I am with you all in this movement
    truly progressing and gaining momentum 100%.

    And by the way, liberty is a synonymous term for freedom.

    So in liberty, and in solidarity, Jake Philip Loubriel (Solid Snake)

    P.S, You guys rock :)

    • Thank you for the note and thank you for taking a stand. Kudos to you and your fellow activists and best of luck under your new banner of Cop Watch!

  • [...] WeCopwatch and Anti-Media distance themselves from Cop Block [...]

  • What surprises me most is that some woman would even allow herself to be photographed naked in front of a loser like Adam in the first place. Guys like that NEVER get laid, hence their fascination with the copblock thing. And I’ve seen photos of the closeness that Adam and Pete have, shirtless in the woods, canoeing, sharing intimate time together. Are there more photos of Pete??

    • We don’t have a problem with Pete. He seems to be a decent person caught up with a shitty group of people.

  • A few more references to “misogyny” and calls to “educate the bigots” and you guys will be awarded your Social Justice Warrior merit badges from Anita Sarkeesian herself.

    • You must think that we care what you think. We have no desire to cater to bigots.

  • Uhhhhhhhhh, 2 things. Number 1, isnt this whole post just completely redundant because its we the ppl watching cops… And if we cant get along with eachother…… That puts us in the same boat as we were with cops….. okay okay nevermind, too big of a concept to grasp or internal beef, not my problem whatever. BUT, i think you should know alot of people follow specifically cop block, so…. Is it smart to differ into smaller groups and spread attention? People might start to…. Idk… Question the real reason for all of this ? But yeah i dont think you guys are reaping in much paper so whatever you are working for must be for passion….. Unless you are in someones pocket just to throw us off…… lol ^^ bob dole bob dole

    • We reject bigotry, period. You can’t effectively fight the police state if you are not insistent upon anti-oppression.

  • State violence/oppression and social violence/oppression have a symbiotic relationship one with another. The State justifies its use of violence/oppression through police action because of the social violence/oppression members of society inflict on one another. The State’s position is that only through applying State force/violence against social force/violence used by the members of society against themselves can the State make society safe. The State would say if the police are violent it is only because society is violent.

    The use of violence/oppression is not immoral and repugnant depending on “who” is using it; it is immoral and repugnant merely because it is violent/oppressive. If violence/oppression by the State is wrong, then social violence/oppression is equally as wrong. It seems to me, then, that social violence/oppression that members of society inflict on one another must be addressed and stopped, as well as State violence/oppression.

  • Well, first problem, not getting rid of those who favor oppression. Like mra’s and neoconfederates(also known as neonazis or boneheads)

  • [...] and move away from a right-wing value set in their anti-police political orientation.  As Peaceful Streets notes, when some founding members began to stand up to some racist and sexist responses, the [...]

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