The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) developed a phone app that will assist you in recording and reporting police conduct. The app, Mobile Justice, works by creating shortcuts to your phone's camera. After recording a video, the app automatically sends it to your state's branch of the ACLU. It also generates a survey for users to complete that asks for details about each recorded police encounter. The app also has a "Know Your Rights" section that help users do just that.
There are versions of Mobile Justice for iOS and Android and it is available in both English and Spanish.
Mobile Justice is state-specific. This allows for modifications to be made based on any particular state law. The ACLU has downloads available in 18 states.
In New York, Mobile Justice isn't the only local ACLU app. Stop And Frisk Watch is a similar app intended to counteract alleged abuses of the controversial policing practice by New York police officers. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has curtailed the use of stop-and-frisk, but last week, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump called for an expansion of the program across the country.
In the current climate, video of police conduct is often an important piece of evidence, if not the most important, used to examine an incident after the fact. In addition to apps like those developed by the ACLU, many law enforcement agencies are implementing police body cameras to capture the officer's point of view.
However, there has been pushback from some police unions on video recording. In Boston, for example, a pilot program has been involved in litigation between the police department and the officer's union.