Memphis police accused of using fake accounts to surveil black activists

Documents appear to show police kept dossiers on dozens of Memphis-area activists along with lists of their associates

Jamiles Lartey
Wed 1 Aug 2018 11.00 BST Last modified on Wed 1 Aug 2018 11.01 BST

Memphis activist and protester Keedran Franklin already knew the city’s police had an eye out for him.

At local demonstrations, he’s frequently the first person to be arrested. Sometimes officers sit outside his office in unmarked cars waiting for him to leave, Franklin and his attorney Scott Kramer claim. In public, officers who Franklin has never met come up to him and address him by name, Kramer said, “just to let (Franklin) know that they (the officers) all know who he is.”

But after all that, Franklin was still surprised to see just how deep it went.

A trove of documents released by the city of Memphis late last week appear to show that its police department has been systematically using fake social media profiles to surveil local Black Lives Matter activists, and that it kept dossiers and detailed power point presentations on dozens of Memphis-area activists along with lists of their known associates.

No name is more prevalent in the documents than that of 32-year old Franklin, who has become a veteran organizer with the Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens and Black Lives Matter causes over the past few years. It’s “saddening” and “a little scary at times,” he told the Guardian, while finding a touch of humor in it too. “Doing all that for this ol’ poor black guy from south Memphis,” Franklin laughed.

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