Laser Projector Copblocks Police Checkpoints

August 20, 2012 by Pete Eyre 19 Comments

Email Bill Domenico at: bill@resunltd4u.com to get your own laser projector (or pool resources with friends to obtain) for $1500

Police checkpoints suck. Why, after all, does someone believe they have the right to impede your freedom of travel, search your vehicle and demand your papers if you’ve done nothing wrong? That sure doesn’t make sense to me and it’s not something I’d voluntary fund.

Fortunately, once a checkpoint becomes known, individuals are actively warning others through the use of signs blocks prior to the checkpoint and through the use of technology like smartphone apps and now, as shown in this video, through the use of laser projectors.

Designed and built by ‘shire-based activist Bill Domenico, this device is an effective way to, as our friends at Peaceful Streets would say, protect and serve each other.

From Domenico:

Once again using our Laser Projector to alert drivers of a suspicionless police checkpoint. This time in Concord , NH on August, 3rd, 2012. As usual the police came over and tried to posture and intimidate us. Three cruisers and five officers within the first five minutes our arriving on the scene. Then, just as abrubtly as they had arrived, the sergeant declared that it was all good! We had no further direct interaction other than a friendly hand wave from an officer in an unmarked car. They did however continue to keep an eye on us throughout the evening from a distance.

Domenico is breaking new ground by using this technology to safeguard individual rights. And, as with any good idea or tactic, he’s seeking to have it replicated.

Domenico is offering to make a mobile laser projector for you. Email him at: bill@resunltd4u.com

Check out another use of the laser projector, this time in Manchester, NH:

Last November Domenico wrote an overview about how to make your own mobile laser in his article “Laser Graffiti Activism” in that months e-mag from Freedom’s Phoenix. Check it out and if you’re up for it, create and employ one in your area.

[click on graphics below for .pdf of Domenico’s write-up]

Pete Eyre

Pete Eyre is co-founder of CopBlock.org. As an advocate of peaceful, consensual interactions, he seeks to inject a message of complete liberty and self-government into the conversation of police accountability.

Eyre went to undergrad and grad school for law enforcement, then spent time in DC as an intern at the Cato Institute, a Koch Fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, Directer of Campus Outreach at the Institute for Humane Studies, Crasher-in-Chief at Bureaucrash, and as a contractor for the Future of Freedom Foundation.

In 2009 he left the belly of the beast and hit the road with Motorhome Diaries and later co-founded Liberty On Tour. He spent time in New Hampshire home, and was involved with Free Keene, the Free State Project and The Daily Decrypt.

Shawn

This one again? There was no harassment and the officers were very polite. While I share your issue with stopping people without cause, others than that, there is no story. And this is the second post.

Don’t forget to call me a retard, jason.
t.

Wonder what he’ll say when some drunk plows into his mom.
PRizzle

It would be one thing if they were honestly out there just after DUI people. The fact is they are not. They are trying to find anything they can to get your money, it helps empower the police for profit problem. too bad they abuse their authority. If they didnt, no one would care about these checkpoints
Bob

Someone should tell the liar Wes Freeman that Pete is stealing or repeating your story “”Laser used to warn drivers of check point” that he posted on here on Aug. 5
YerMomsHouse

Since I am just about tired of the people who believe what the police tell them about these checkpoints, I will let you do the study that will show that more drunk drivers are caught without the checkpoints than with. If these checkpoints do anything, they make the people who ARE driving drunk drive further to avoid the checkpoint. Also look into the arrests made at these checkpoints. 2% are for DD. The rest are for license, plate, or civil infractions.
certain

Nice try wally, but statistics have already shown that mobile saturation patrols are far more effective at removing drunks from the streets than fixed checkpoints.
K.C.

The cops and D.A. will say lasers also harm and vandalize property surfaces, just as they did about chalk.
Peace

Saw this story here last August 5 th: http://www.copblock.org/18931/laser-used-to-warn-drivers-of-checkpoint/

The Police cars appeared brand new…that surely costs the city a bundle….oh well, the city mayor can always bilked property owners for more taxes to pay and equip for a expensive military police force and for their golden pensions. :P
shawn

“The Police cars appeared brand new”

Police cars always look brand new. The miles they put on them, they have what? A life expectancy of two years? That’s assuming they aren’t used to crash a fleeing suspect in a car chase or some other event.

I’m no cop fan, but that’s barking up the wrong tree.
oceancountycopblock

GOOD JOB how do you find the places they set up the checkpoints
oceancountycopblock@gmail.com
Haile Selassie

As fucked as the law is for allowing these checkpoints in the first place, these kinds of stories wherein the police actually end up obeying it entirely is refreshing.
Ed

Every year at Hunter Mountain in N.Y., they have the NYC police and Fireman’s ski races. Well, these cops and firemen get drunk as hell and even illegally bring alcohol onto the property and throw the beer cans all over the slopes. Do they have DWI checkpoints during these festivities? No. This year I’m going to bring my new camera and film these idiots, and then I’m going to post it Youtube. They won’t stop these drunken fools until they kill someone, maybe a cops mother.
Ariel

Certain @ 3:39:

That is my understanding also. The checkpoints do, however, catch a lot of other infractions, which is a questionable use and shouldn’t be allowed.

t., if the checkpoints are less effective than mobile saturation, then your “plowed into mom” is fraught with irony.
Ariel

Ed @ 1:45 PM:

Cops do arrest drunken cops, but the incidence is less if the cop is of the same PD. NYC has it’s own rules.
Ed

Of course they arrest drunk cops, but Hunter brings in thousands of dollars because of theses ski races. The head of security at Hunter is a cop. Get it? Years ago a cop was doing 100 MPH down main street in Hunter and smashed into a tree and died. He wasn’t in pursuit of anyone either. The scar on the tree is still there. Was it ever investigated? No. The Mountain Jam festival at Hunter was over saturated with police all over until people complained about people being pulled over for no reason. The festival this year had the lowest attendance since it’s inception.
Ariel

Hi, Ed,

I was stating a more general rule that cops are more likely to be arrested for DUI, or given a speeding ticket, by a cop not with their PD. It’s fairly common for State police to be less than forgiving with municipal police. It’s not any different from sailors, marines, and coasties. There is a rivalry of smaller tribes within a larger tribe. However, even sailors, marines, and coasties get together depending on the event as special events can generate momentary alliances.

I live about 2800 miles from you so I can’t speak to Hunter specifically.
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Pete Eyre

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