How to Clean Up Copaganda

A Toolkit for Journalists, Communicators, and Organizers Responding to Law Enforcement Disinformation

By Lewis Raven Wallace

This toolkit accompanies and expands on our “Don’t Be A Copagandist” series by providing tools for shifting coverage to counter copaganda.

  • Order the “How to Clean Up Copaganda” poster

  • Check out the “Don’t Be A Copagandist” guide series

01. Introduction: The Purpose of This Toolkit 

There is ample evidence that police, prosecutors, ICE, and federal, state and local law enforcement officers and agencies in the United States lie and mislead the public around everything from crime statistics to individual instances of violence by law enforcement agents. Click here for more context and data on police lies.

Police departments are known for attempting to shape public perceptions to suit their purposes, but the problem goes beyond local law enforcement agencies. Official sources of disinformation also include federal and state authorities, prison and detention operators, probation and court agencies, as well as prosecutors and judges. Click here for our printable poster, “How to Clean Up Copaganda.”

Journalists and organizers can play a critical role in countering copaganda, and should assume that law enforcement data, statements, and even sworn testimony are potential sources of disinformation or misleading propaganda. Journalists in particular should take care not to be stenographers for police and thus risk spreading disinformation.

However, whether it’s a killing by a cop, a death in custody, a police response to a protest, or a mass shooting, confirming or disproving an official statement about a breaking piece of news is usually not as simple as asking a couple of questions and setting the record straight. 

What follows is a guide for how journalists and communicators can deal with law enforcement disinformation — through careful and thorough coverage, asking the right questions, seeking alternate sources, and making public records requests. Where it is not possible to get the information in a timely manner, we also provide qualifying language that journalists and communicators can use to report on police statements in context.

“Journalists and organizers can play a critical role in countering copaganda, and should assume that law enforcement data, statements, and even sworn testimony are potential sources of disinformation or misleading propaganda. Journalists in particular should take care not to be stenographers for police and thus risk spreading disinformation.”

COPS LIE

COPS LIE

Cops Lie:

The Evidence

There is ample evidence showing that police, prosecutors, ICE, and federal law enforcement in the United States lie and mislead in public statements.

Check out the quotes below for a few examples, and read more on our Cops Lie webpage.

Cops Lie

  • “The press release about George Floyd was not an anomaly. This is ordinary operating procedures for police departments across the nation.”

    — Jody David Armour, University of Southern California law professor, in The Guardian

  • “Police officers have a long-documented history of lying, a thick catalog of proof even without the help of cameras.”

    — Buzzfeed News report, 2017

  • "In cases where the police are later accused of excessive and unwarranted use of force, the first draft of history is almost always written in part by those same officers, who often portray the police in flattering ways and the alleged suspect in less flattering ones.”

    — The Washington Post report, 2023

  • "...It's a normal part of policing in some places for police officers to lie."

    — Phillip Stinson, criminal justice professor at Bowling Green University, in USA TODAY

  • "[Lying is] something that has been endemic in the history of the American police system for the last three or four generations … And why do they do it? The main reason they do it, historically and now, is they can get away with it.”

    — former San Francisco police commissioner Peter Keane, in Buzzfeed News

Local news reporters and organizers are often the only people situated to uncover the truth. That is why we created this guide: to contribute to the creation of a more accurate public record of policing incidents, and to combat the aggressive “copaganda” that makes such an accounting challenging. 

02. Checklist for Journalists & Communicators Covering Law Enforcement Statements to Press

✅ Talk with your editors ahead of time about your assumptions and agreements.

Share statistics and background about the likelihood that police statements won’t tell the whole story, and may twist reality to suit their purposes in order to set up a productive conversation about police and law enforcement deception. This will help set you up for when you’re on deadline and don’t have time for deep discussion. 

✅ Assume law enforcement are lying, particularly when they might be implicated for wrongdoing. 

This should be your starting assumption from which you ask questions and investigate. There is plenty of data to back this up and it is good journalistic practice not to get duped. 

✅ Instead of repeating police statements, find out the facts.

You can use shoe-leather reporting such as interviews and eyewitness statements, video footage, and public records requests to cut through police lies.

✅ Seek alternate sources to respond to police statements.

Even if you can’t confirm or deny a law enforcement statement, work to find eyewitnesses, community members, expert commentators, and researchers and journalists who have observed law enforcement disinformation and ask for their comment. 

✅ Contextualize all statements from police departments and associations, federal enforcement agencies, and private prison and detention profiteers.

As you write, if you choose to repeat statements from law enforcement or those who benefit from policing and incarceration, put them in context. Make it clear that the statement is “according to police” or "the police story" rather than just offering it as fact without qualification. Mention instances in the past where police and law enforcement agencies have lied or mislead the public, and note that it is possible — even likely — that they are not being truthful now. 

✅ Cut out police phrasing that is vague, uses the passive voice, or evades responsibility.

If police use phrases like “officer-involved shooting” or “violent protest,” switch to direct language where possible (“police shot someone”) or contextualize it (“a protest characterized by the local police department, known for repressing dissent, as “violent.”)

If law enforcement refuse to be specific or just send a canned statement, keep asking specific questions and note when they don’t answer them directly.

See our “Don’t Be A Copagandist” series for more specific tips on language. 

✅ Cut out blaming terminology.

Police often use terms like “rioters,” “resisting arrest,” or stigmatizing mental and physical health diagnoses to excuse their own acts of violence against civilians. For example, the Associated Press reports that a condition called “excited delirium” has been given as a cause of death in at least 142 cases where people died in police custody. But “excited delirium” is a controversial diagnosis, not accepted by the American Medical Association or the American College of Medical Toxicology, which cites its association with racism and clinical imprecision. 

See our “Don’t Be A Copagandist” series for more on terminology in specific types of reporting. 

✅ Advocate in your newsroom for changing coverage of law enforcement.

After the fact, police lies that have been exposed present an opportunity for a broader discussion in newsrooms about why official statements are considered credible and even “objective” when we have so much evidence that cops lie. Use the facts to advocate for new policies and procedures that prevent the newsroom from repeating cop lies in the future.

✅ Download and print or order our “How to Clean Up Copaganda” poster and put it up in your office or newsroom.

Our “How to Clean Up Copaganda” poster is meant as a simple guide and a daily reminder for journalists and communicators to push back on law enforcement propaganda. 

03. Examples of Shifting Coverage in the Wake of Copaganda 

Police Killing of Sonya Massey

Credit: Trevor Hughes/USA Today Network via CNN Newsource

  • When police first shot and killed Sonya Massey in her home in Illinois on July 6, 2024, they issued the following statement:

    • “At approximately 12:50 a.m. on July 6, 2024, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to a residence in the 2800 block of Hoover Avenue in Springfield following a 911 call reporting a prowler.

      Upon arrival, two Deputies conducted a search of the area. At approximately 1:21 a.m., the Deputies reported that shots had been fired, resulting in a female being struck by gunfire. Deputies immediately administered first aid until EMS arrived. The woman was transported to St. John’s Hospital, where she was later pronounced deceased. No deputies were injured during the incident.

      The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office has requested the Illinois State Police conduct an independent investigation into the matter.

      At this time, no further information is available. All inquiries should be directed to the Illinois State Police Zone 4 Investigations.”

    Notice that police did not mention that the shots were fired by their own deputies, and claimed that the deputies had administered first aid. On July 17 the Sheriff’s Office announced in a statement that the state’s attorney would be charging one of the deputies, Sean Grayson, in the case, but still did not provide details of the incident.

  • On July 22, police released the body camera footage of Sonya Massey’s death. The footage, which will be disturbing to many, shows Massey in her kitchen near the stove when one of the two officers, Sean Grayson, begins yelling at her, pulls out his gun, and shoots her in the head. Afterwards, Grayson discouraged his partner from administering first aid.

  • At first, local news reports simply repeated the police statement about the July 6 shooting (see a similar example from NPR Illinois). Other coverage confirmed that the police officers were the shooters, but implied that Massey may have been the “intruder” they were called to help with. 

    Even after the Sheriff’s Office stated directly to reporters on July 6 and 8 that their officers were the ones doing the shooting, coverage the following week called it a “deputy-involved shooting”. As protests mounted and the family got a lawyer, some stories expanded their coverage with attorney’s statements asserting that the cops were liable for her death.  

    The state completed an investigation into her death in just ten days, and charged Sean Grayson with her death. ABC News wrote a story once Grayson was charged, detailing the allegations against him. CBS and other national outlets did the same. 

    After the video was released, local, national, and even international media covered the story more aggressively. The brutality of Officer Sean Grayson was clear from the footage. Here are some of the stories that came out at that point:

    Reporting during that same period also uncovered that Sean Grayson had worked at six different police departments in under five years, and that he had a history of DUIs. Massey’s family was quoted questioning why he had been hired in the first place, saying there were many ‘red flags.’ 

  • Repeating police statements can create a false narrative that is usually based on lies, mischaracterizations, or lack of information. For the first few days after Sonya Massey’s death, the coverage did not directly implicate officers. While later coverage called the cops’ story into question, it wasn’t until the release of body-cam footage that the truth about Massey’s death came out.

    Community organizing and protest started within days after her death. Local and national coverage could have zoomed in on that organizing, emphasizing who she was and that police had killed her. They could also have investigated the background of the two sheriff’s deputies even before the video came out. 

Police Violence Against Pro-Palestine Protesters

  • Capitol Police in D.C. in 2023 attacked about 150 protesters with tear gas and physical brutality outside of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices. The cops told media that the demonstrators had “illegally and violently” protested, that the police suffered injuries, and that protesters had used pepper spray against police. 

  • The demonstrators, wearing Ceasefire Now t-shirts, aimed to surround the DNC during a banquet and confront members of Congress as they emerged from the building. Police used force and brutality to move and remove a large group before most media outlets arrived on the scene of the protest; chaotic video shows the cops throwing protesters down the stairs of the DNC, tear-gassing, and pushing into the crowd with bikes. As one demonstrator told The Appeal, “There was never a plan to peacefully disperse us…The only plan was to escalate and to treat us with brutal violence.”

    In spite of police assertions that the protesters were violent, and a police presence that completely overwhelmed the protesters, only one person was arrested and charged with assault on an officer. A lawsuit filed the following year against Capitol Police details “severe physical assaults, including strangulation, pepper spraying and sexual assault, with officers allegedly using excessive force to silence the protesters. The lawsuit further claims that two plaintiffs were strangled with their keffiyehs, a symbol of solidarity with Palestine,” according to movement media outlet Prism.

  • Initial reports parroted the police statements calling the protest “violent” and describing the police attack as a “clash.” An Al Jazeera headline calls it a clash, but the content of the article carefully describes police attacks on protesters and avoids categorizing the demonstrations as violent (which they were not). In the days following the attacks, Jewish Voice for Peace Action and other groups put out statements condemning police behavior and attempting to correct the record. 

    Democracy Now and The Appeal were among the only national outlets to lead with the police violence from the onset of their coverage, and most outlets never followed up or corrected the record. 

  • This was one of the first instances of police attacks on pro-Palestine demonstrators as the anti-war, anti-genocide movement grew in the fall of 2023. News coverage that justified police violence and repeated police lies contributed to a culture of complacency with cops’ attacks on anti-war protesters. As the protests grew around the country, cops escalated violence against encampments and direct actions against genocide, knowing that media would for the most part not hold them accountable for instigating violence. All they had to do was lie and say protesters were “violent” and media would then cover it as a “clash.”

    One of the best things media outlets can do in these circumstances is to be physically present from the get-go. Outlets and reporters who gain the trust of demonstrators and protest movements can get inside tips that allow them to be on the ground, taking video and observing as things are happening. Short of being physically present, it’s extremely important that media do not simply repeat police statements about “clashes,” “violent protests,” and so on, as that directly supports police repression of protest and free speech and creates an environment of impunity for officers policing protest.  

04. Tools

Questions to Ask of Police

If police announce an “officer-involved" shooting or death…

  • How exactly did the person die? How were officers involved?

  • Did someone from your department kill a civilian?

    • Who? 

  • Given past incidents in which police have killed people and the public has later learned that the officers involved didn’t tell the truth, what evidence can you provide that the version given today is true? 

  • Are the officer(s) involved on paid or unpaid leave? 

  • When will the public be able to see: 

    • body camera or surveillance footage?

    • an independent autopsy report?

    • a report by an outside (non-police) investigator? 

If there was a death in custody…

  • How exactly did the person die? How were officers involved? 

  • Did someone from your department kill this person? Deny them assistance?

  • Given past incidents in which someone has died in [county jail, state prison, etc] and the public has later learned that the institution didn’t tell the whole truth, what evidence can you provide that the version given today is true? 

  • Did this person have medical needs or a medical emergency while in custody?

    • If so, how were those needs addressed?

  • Did this person have mental health needs or a mental health emergency while in custody?

    • If so, how were those needs addressed? 

  • Who witnessed the death [and can we speak to them]?

  • When will the public be able to see: 

    • body camera or surveillance footage?

    • an autopsy report?

    • a report by an outside (non-police) investigator? 

After a protest…

  • When the protest is described as “violent,” what does that mean?

    • Can you be specific? 

    • Can police provide evidence that this violence actually occurred? 

  • Given police history of using unfounded accusations of violence to criminalize protest, why should we report this as you have stated rather than waiting for more evidence? 

  • How many people were arrested? What were the charges?*

  • Why did police use (tear gas, rubber bullets, physical violence) to disperse the crowd?

  • How much money did the department spend on policing this protest? How many overtime hours, etc.?

*Note: Often police will say a protest was “violent” but arrest virtually nobody; when this is the case, it can be an opportunity to push them on whether the alleged violence even happened.

Suggestions for Alternate Sourcing

If police killed someone…

  • As soon as it is possible and respectful, reach out to family or community members of the deceased person to learn what their experience and perception is, and to humanize the person in the coverage. 

  • Find eyewitnesses, neighbors, and anyone who might have taken video or made direct observations before, during, or after the incident.

  • Identify organizers and researchers who look at police conduct or track police violence or abuse, and ask them to place the alleged incident in context.

  • Speak to activists or organizers whose work relates to policing, or activist attorneys who represent victims’ families. 

  • Find neighborhood fixtures, elders, or historians to give context to the location, past instances of police violence in the area, etc. 

  • As soon as possible, get the names of the officers and research their backgrounds, whether they have been involved in other violent incidents in the past, previous employment history, and family history. Many officers who kill people have histories of domestic violence and/or previous violence on the job. 

“Get the names of the officers and research their backgrounds, whether they have been involved in other violent incidents in the past, previous employment history, and family history. Many officers who kill people have histories of domestic violence and/or previous violence on the job.”

If there was a death in custody…

  • As soon as it is possible and respectful, reach out to family and community members of the deceased person to learn what their experience and perception is, and to humanize the person in the coverage. More often than not, the family has other opinions or suspicions about what happened to their family member.

  • Find a health or mental health professional who can comment on the diagnoses given by police or by the autopsy report. If police cite a cause of death such as “excited delirium,” for example, a balanced story would note that the American Medical Association does not accept this as a legitimate diagnosis. 

  • As soon as possible, get the names of the officers and research their backgrounds, whether they have been involved in other violent incidents in the past, previous employment history, and family history. Many officers who kill people have histories of domestic violence and/or previous violence on the job. 

After a protest…

  • The best thing you can do to cover a protest accurately is be there observing from the very beginning (and evade arrest or assault by officers, which may be tricky). 

  • Speak to as many eyewitnesses as possible. Everything that police claim happened should be double-checked with others who were present, either as participants or on the sidelines. Try to get videos from multiple sources to do your own visual verification. 

  • Speak to organizational leaders and protest organizers. Almost invariably, their numbers and statements about what happened will differ from police. Do not publish without checking with them first, so at the very least you can reflect that there are conflicting narratives.

Sample Language for Qualifying Statements from Police

If you do choose to publish police statements, consider adding a disclaimer that acknowledges the specific and documented history of misleading statements from police, prison guards, ICE and CBP, and so on.

What follows is suggested language for a few scenarios; you will want to make this specific to your region or market. 

“

If police killed someone…

If there was a death in custody…

“

  • Jail and prison guards have a history of deceiving the public about their violence. 

  • A New York Times investigation in 2021 found New York City jail guards “often lie” about excessive force.

After a protest…

“

  • According to a study by the Thurgood Marshall Institute, police are twice as likely to show up at racial justice protests than other types of protest, and riot police, national guard, or state police are three times as likely to be present at racial justice events. 

  • Police are eight times more likely to use projectiles and chemical weapons at racial justice protests than other types of protests, even controlling for protestor behaviors and crowd size, according to the Thurgood Marshall Institute. 

  • In many cases over multiple decades, police have been shown to respond to demonstrations with unprovoked acts of violence. 

Considerations & Resources for Filing FOIA Requests

Finally, file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to try to get video documentation and other evidence from officials.

Things to consider asking for when filing a FOIA request:

  • Autopsy reports

  • Surveillance video

  • Internal emails before, during, or after an incident

  • Employment records of the officers involved

Resources for filing a FOIA request:

05. Resources

Additional Explorations & Resources

References