But that night, Darrow, then a 17-year-old senior at Lutheran High School South in Affton, decided to gas up his car. According to a police report, an off-duty officer claims he spotted Darrow driving recklessly on Chippewa Street. Darrow pulled into a lot. The officer followed.

Darrow described a terror-filled scene: A man yelling at him, pressing a gun to his head, claiming he was a cop. The stranger wasn't in uniform. He didn't have a badge. Darrow admits he swung a metal baton at his attacker. "He told me if I hit him again he'd blow my brains out," Darrow recalled.

Darrow fled home in his car. Police arrived. Darrow tried to explain. But he was arrested and charged with a weapons felony and third-degree assault.

"It didn't matter what I said," he recalled. "I was going to jail."

His attorney, Richard Fredman, believed his client — so much so he decided Darrow should testify before the grand jury. It was a gamble, as indictments are not hard for prosecutors to win.

"He was a nice young man who really had the living daylights scared out of him," Fredman said.

Before the grand jury, Darrow described how he feared for his life. He was so nervous he lost his voice. The grand jury believed him. No indictment. The off-duty officer left the force the next month.

"It was an eye-opener," Darrow said. "It really did change me."

Just out of high school, when most of his friends were exploring new freedoms, Darrow turned cautious. He rarely went out. He drifted from old friends. His mom thought her son was maturing. But to Darrow, it felt like he was recoiling.

He spent that summer at home, poking around on the Web, reading laws and court decisions. He wondered, what are my rights? He scrutinized traffic laws. He became the type of person who knows that Missouri law requires only two bulbs for a taillight, although most cars have four.

He wanted protection from police. But what? Then it hit him: a camera.

The Sony Handicam cost $500 at Circuit City. Darrow wedged it under the headrest of his car's passenger seat, then built a wood clamp for it around his seat.

Over the next several months, Darrow was pulled over several times for minor traffic violations. Sometimes officers were polite. He fondly recalls a speeding ticket from a by-the-book officer in Webster Groves.

But he also captured officers who insisted on asking him where he was going, what he was doing. Versed in the law, Darrow knew, in most cases, he had no obligation to answer.

He felt he was exercising his rights. Police felt he was being troublesome, like when he was stopped at a DWI checkpoint in St. Louis County.

In that video, posted online in December 2006, an officer asks Darrow, "Where are you headed tonight?"

"I don't wish to discuss my personal life with you officer," Darrow responds.

Darrow was allowed to pass through the checkpoint, but the video created a buzz at an online forum called Copwatch.net. The site's logo is a photo of cops beating a man over the slogan "Shooting for Justice." Ridicule of police and tales of bad cops are common.

Darrow quickly became a Copwatch celebrity because of his videos. He was given the title of "moderator." He visited often, posting nearly 200 comments since April.

On the Copwatch site, Darrow posts his views on how speed enforcement is just a money-making ploy. He advocates for concealed-weapons permits and indicates he would love to own an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Mostly he argues that police — he calls them "copscum" at one point — constantly overstep the laws.

He also talks about toying with St. Louis police officers at a site called STL Coptalk, which is popular with city officers but not endorsed by the police department.

In August, Copwatch discussed the shooting death of city police officer Norvelle Brown. One Copwatch member claims he hacked into STL Coptalk and altered a memorial for Brown to refer to the black officer as "a monkey."

Darrow, using the handle "Maxima," responds to the message, saying he laughed out loud: "I wonder who did that," he wrote.

Asked about it recently, Darrow says the message he responded to did not feature the racist picture or wording. It was added later. He says he was just responding to the hacking of the police's unofficial website.

Copwatch recently erased the Norvelle Brown discussion.

But Copwatch was not alone in pushing the line on taste. At the STL Coptalk website, posters discussed going after Darrow. "Who is this terd?" someone asked on STL Coptalk in June after Darrow posted video of another traffic stop.

An anonymous poster responded by giving out Darrow's home address. Another poster, under the handle "STL_Finest," wrote: "I hope this little POS punk bastard tries his little video stunt with me when I pull him over alone — because I will see 'his gun' and place a hunk of hot lead right where it belongs."

For Darrow, the postings only reaffirmed his fears.

On Sept. 7, Darrow hit the big time.

He pulled into a commuter parking lot in south St. Louis County. Darrow claims he was meeting a friend from his college ethics class. He had left his cell phone at her house. They arranged to meet between their homes around 2 a.m.

St. George police Sgt. James Kuehnlein was curious about the car. Darrow's camera is trained on the dashboard, but the audio can be heard. At about one minute and thirty seconds, the camera captures a typical cop-motorist exchange that quickly goes awry:

Darrow: Did I commit a moving violation?

Officer: Yeah, you did, when you were coming in here.

Darrow: Really? What was that?

Officer: Yeah, you want to try me? You want to try me tonight? You think you've had a bad night? I will ruin your (expletive) night.

The police officer threatens to make up charges to put Darrow in jail.

Darrow said he was terrified. He was alone in a parking lot with an officer, just as he had been three years ago. It was his word versus the police, once again.

This time he had a video camera. Darrow lied to the sergeant that the video was transmitted over the Internet. He worried the officer would take the camera.

Eventually, Darrow is allowed to leave. No ticket.

The next day, Darrow uploaded the video to the Web. He called it "Cop Gone Wild." Since then, the video has been viewed more than 500,000 times online. Last Friday, it was revealed the police officer was fired. Prosecutors now are investigating.

The fired cop's attorney, Richard Sindel, said his client was a victim of a setup. "That's what this kid likes to do," Sindel said.

But a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis said every police officer should act as if he or she is being videotaped. It is nothing new. He called it the "Rodney King effect."

"If you don't behave inappropriately," professor David Klinger said, "then there's no video of you acting inappropriately."

Since the video went public, Darrow has received hundreds of e-mails from people who assume he hates police.

"But that's not me," he says. "I've never been anti-police. Even after this, I'm not anti-police."

At the same time Darrow's video was flowing across the Web, he was writing a paper for his "Civil Rights in St. Louis" class at St. Louis Community College. The topic was the Jena Six, the case in Louisiana of six black teens that has emerged as a civil rights cause. Darrow wrote an essay supporting the local prosecutor's decision to file stiff charges against the black teens for beating up a white student. Darrow's instructor, Mario Charles, was shocked.

"For me to see him on the news, to see him fighting for his own rights, it threw me for a loop," Charles said.

But the teacher also was impressed. He gave the paper an A.

Back in court over the U-turn ticket, the judge called Darrow's case. The prosecutor apologized. The police officers were absent. The case must be dismissed.

"You're free to go," the judge said.

"Thank you," Darrow said.

A surprised Darrow and his mom walked out of the courtroom.

Darrow still feels like a marked man. His mom worries about how police will treat her son, the same kid who back in elementary school dressed up as a police officer for Halloween. "Maybe not this month or in October. But next year," she said. "There are always vengeful cops."

The video camera has protected Darrow several times, he is sure of it. But the camera also has made him feel like a target. The threats made on STL CopTalk sound real to him. He says he recently spotted city police parked not far from his house.

It alarmed him. He shot video of that, too, and posted it online.

Now when Darrow drives home late at night after his classes, he worries. His mind races, his video camera always on.

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