Winnipeg Copwatch

After a spate of police confiscations of cameras belonging to journalists and citizens over the past five years, and an ignored attempt to resolve the issue with Winnipeg Police Service Chief Keith McCaskill, Winnipeg Copwatch is today launching a campaign to help protect everyone who takes pictures or films in public, with three initiatives:

• In partnership with the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties (MARL), Copwatch is initiating complaints with the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA) and the Manitoba Ombudsman about a string of incidents over the past five years in which Winnipeg Police Service officers appear to be illegally confiscating video and still camera equipment from journalists and citizens, sometimes destroying some of the contents. The complaints are asking for recommendations that the Winnipeg Police Service change their policy to explicitly recognize the rights of individuals to take photos and video in public.

• Copwatch is distributing a new “rights card”, which is a wallet­-sized reminder for people about their rights while filming or taking photos.

• A new email account, mobile@winnipegcopwatch.org, has been set up for people to send photos to from their cellphones. If someone has an email­-capable phone and is worried about it phone being confiscated, sending the photos will protect them from police deletion.