Meeting 1: Notes from Police Accountability Mt. Vernon Baptist Church JLM Life Center

The Smart Chicago Collaborative is documenting the four community forums hosted by the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force and held across the city in the month of February.

The purpose of the meetings were to provide residents the opportunity to speak or submit written comments on improving the accountability, oversight and training of Chicago’s police officers.

We sent a number of people to this first meeting, held at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church JLM Life Center at 2622 W. Jackson Boulevard:

Three text documenters: see their notes here

Two videographers (Community TV Network, video here)

One photographer (Daniel X. O’Neil, images here, download them all here in hi res.

The meeting was conducted by the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force. The Task Force itself also videotaped this meeting — see that here.

All of this material is posted under Creative Commons 4.0 license. You are free to use it for any purpose, with attribution.

How we do it

Here’s a look into our documentation process.

CTVN mentor films the speakers:

While an apprentice gets the wide shot:

Our documenters filled in a back row:

And one also filled out a few comment cards that were read by the moderator.