The Charter

The nine articles

Most safety programs list what they’ll do. Orlando Mothers Watch starts with what it will never do — in public, before the first walk. These nine articles bind every volunteer, every board member, and the founder most of all. Hold the Mothers to every line.

1. No arrests. No detentions. No touching.

   The Mothers hold no police powers and want none. We never restrain, block, chase, search, or attempt any “citizen’s arrest” — not as a last resort, not ever. The scholarly footnote, for anyone who thinks that’s soft: a landmark study found that not prosecuting a marginal nonviolent misdemeanor cut a person’s new criminal complaints by more than half over two years (Agan, Doleac & Harvey, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2023). Routing a drunk 22-year-old home instead of into handcuffs isn’t mercy at the expense of safety. It is safety.

2. No surveillance — and one disciplined exception, in writing.

   The cameras stay off for the crowd — and switch on only when violence does. No live streams, no bodycams, no watching software, no faces in any database, no recording of ordinary nights — a watched crowd is not a welcomed one. The single exception is written here so no one has to wonder: when violence erupts or a threat turns imminent, the team documents from a safe distance — for the Mothers’ own safety and for the officers and prosecutors who need the full story. That footage is sealed and handed to OPD the same night, and publication — the thing that turns a camera into a weapon — is designed out. Willing bystanders get witness-connect cards so their own account reaches OPD before the crowd scatters. Accountability, the right way.

3. No politics. Ever.

   We are organized exclusively for charitable purposes, and the federal ban on campaign activity by charities is our floor, not our ceiling. Not one dollar, and not one name — donor, volunteer, or supporter — will ever touch a campaign, a party, a PAC, or a political list. That firewall is written into our governing documents and into every pledge agreement, and it binds the founder hardest of all: no endorsements, no candidate events, no “special guests.” If we ever break this article, report us to the IRS. We mean that literally.

4. Observe. Report. De-escalate where you can. Retreat when you can’t.

   The Mothers are trained witnesses, not responders. See it, radio it, cool it if a calm voice can — and step back the moment it can’t. House rule: if you’ve spent ten seconds deciding whether something is a 911 call, it’s a 911 call. Our written report reaches OPD the same night, every night — non-enforcement has never meant non-cooperation. Shreveport’s Dads on Duty run the same doctrine; their founder, in The 74 (2021): “We don’t break up fights. Our men are instructed: ‘You put your hands in your pockets and you step back.’”

5. Three together. Always.

   No Mother walks alone, splits off, or “just goes to check on something.” Teams of three, minimum, on anchored corners, with radio check-ins on the clock and a duress protocol drilled until it’s boring.

6. We carry naloxone.

   Every team carries Narcan under Florida’s statewide standing order (Fla. Stat. §381.887), acting with Good Samaritan protection (§768.13), and every Mother is trained in overdose reversal. Somebody’s child is going to wake up on that sidewalk because a Mother got there first. That is the whole program in one sentence.

7. We profile no one — and we move no one along.

   No dress-code judgments, no ID demands, no “you don’t belong here.” The young crowd that fills these blocks is the constituency we serve, not a problem we manage. The same article protects our unsheltered neighbors: behavior is what gets reported — anyone’s behavior — and a person’s housing status never is. We offer water, we carry the outreach numbers, we connect, and we report hazards; we do not sweep human beings. Anti-profiling training is mandatory, repeated at every recommissioning, and our logs are audited against it.

8. We log categories, never faces.

   Our incident forms contain no field for a name, a face, a photo, a birth date, or a license plate — the fields do not exist, so the data cannot. We record what happened (a safe walk, a de‑escalation, a medical assist, a hazard), where, and when — the same categories the OMW App routes requests by. Narratives are capped and scrubbed of identifying detail; the monthly counts publish for everyone. The one exception is the sealed incident documentation above — OPD’s the same night, never entering our records at all. The people of downtown are nobody’s database.

9. Six months at a time.

   No permanent badges and no tenure. Every Mother is commissioned for a renewable six-month term, with re-screening and refresher training at each renewal. Standards renew, or service ends — kindly, but it ends. The same discipline applies to the board.

Ready to sign every line? Walk with us →