In some circumstances violating traffic laws (either by police or private citizens) is obviously justified to deter a greater threat (say getting someone to the hospital). However police routinely exert privilege (double parking on Pacific Avenue) where it doesn't seem necessary or appropriate. Such practices can only be detered by documentation and publicizing the cases.

In 2003 the Rotkin-Mathews City Council (then chaired by Reilly) unanimously voted to dismember the Citizen Police Review Board. The CPRB had been looking into issues of selective police enforcement, failure to document their use of weapons, racial discrimination, and other systematized police misconduct. (see "Santa Cruz Lays Waste To Police Oversight" by Mark Halfmoon, former chair of the CPRB and briefly chair of the extremely short-lived CPRB-in-exile, also "CPRB Records To Be Destroyed" by R. Norse, "Letter to Scott Kennedy, Killer of Citizen Police Review" by Becky Johnson

As a sop, City Council spent half the $80,000 previously allotted the CPRB on an "independent auditor", Bob Arenson, previously the lawyer for the CPRB. Arenson showed up once a month at the old CPRB office and (sometimes) returned calls.

In 2004, they cut Arenson's hours and salary again by half. All his reports are in-house and kept from the public.

In theory it's not a bad idea to file a police complaint with Arenson (or the Internal Affairs Dept. of the SCPD), since such complaints are then ultimately accessible to defense lawyers (or folks acting as their own attorneys) in Pitchess motions in the future.

In practice, Arenson is an overpaid bureaucrat who should have refused to take the figleaf position of "auditor" when Reilly's Council killed the CPRB. His secret reports are not available to us, as far as I know.

Direct Action gets the goods.

Immediate copwatching when police misconduct is happening is far more effective. Leave specifics of what you've observed here on indymedia and/or call Free Radio Santa Cruz at 831-427-3772.