Check It Out
Soledad O’Brien Documentary, Black in America: Black & Blue: “Everyone I interview... has a story about fear of police”
by Li Onesto | November 24, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
It starts with a video from July 17, 2014—Eric Garner being attacked by NYPD cops in Staten Island, New York. There’s a voiceover of someone saying, “It could be you, it could be your loved one, it could be your brother, your sister, your uncle, your cousin, your friend.” Another voice says, “Things like this happen to us too often.”
Then the narrator says, “Officers are only supposed to arrest someone if they have evidence of a crime... Eric Garner is on the sidewalk, struggling against an apparent chokehold. By the end of this video, he will be dead.”
Then you see it: Eric Garner, in a chokehold, being brought to the ground. And you hear him saying, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
The picture then cuts to a demonstration where people are chanting, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
This is the start of the documentary Black in America: Black and Blue—Soledad O’Brien Reports. It premiered on Tuesday, November 18, at 9 pm ET on CNN; You can watch the trailer on YouTube.
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Soledad O’Brien wrote, “I have been reporting on the black community my entire career, most recently developing the documentary series Black in America, which illuminates the lives of black Americans from their point of view. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—I interview in the black community has a story about fear of police, usually their own.” (Soledad O’Brien blog on Huffington Post)
Indeed, this is the truth of the situation Soledad O’Brien brings out in this documentary—giving voice to some of the young Black men who have been victims of police harassment and brutality. If you can find this documentary on the Internet or CNN ends up posting it on their website, definitely watch it.
We meet Keeshan Harley, a college student who is 19 years old and lives in the Bedford- Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. He’s been stopped and frisked more than 100 times—and never been charged with a single crime. He says he was only 13 the first time he was stopped. The excuse they always give, he says, is “I fit the description.” He talks about how, in addition to the physical abuse, this “messes with you psychologically, emotionally.” Keeshan’s mother, Safiya Harley, doesn’t go to sleep until he comes home and says, “The fact that it happens just about every single day is overwhelming and can lead you to lose your head.”
Later Keeshan tells us, “Enough is enough. We have to demand something be done about this. If I see another story about a person of color being killed by a police officer for no reason I’m going to lose my mind. I have no idea how to exist in this society so I have to accommodate through the solidarity of my people... we have to keep fighting, these people’s lives matter.”
We also meet Luis Paulino. In August 2012 he was walking in his East New York neighborhood when he saw the police stopping a kid for riding his bike on the sidewalk. The cops had maced him, tased him. Luis said he wanted to make sure the kid was all right—“honestly, the kid could have been my brother.”
As Luis Paulino is talking, you’re seeing the video caught on a cell phone and it’s hard to look at. About five cops are all on top of Luis, beating him, punching and kicking him mercilessly. You hear people all around yelling, “He didn’t do nothing, he didn’t do nothing.” Then they cuff him and yank him up, face down by his arms behind his back, causing serious injuries. Luis is charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstructing a government official—charges that are all later dropped.
Today, Luis still goes to physical therapy for his injuries and is waiting for a third surgery to repair torn ligaments. He says, “Every time I’m asked about the incident I close my eyes and can see myself, I can see myself on the floor getting punched, getting kneed. Every day I wake up and I have aches and pains in both of my arms.”
We also hear from the cops themselves, including New York Police Commissioner William Bratton, who likens the NYPD’s handling of high-crime areas under [former] Commissioner Raymond Kelly to General David Petraeus’ “surge” in Iraq.
We hear from a cop whose identity is hidden. Interviewed in the dark, he says he believes the police department is aiming to create an atmosphere of fear and says, referring to the people in the neighborhoods, “What we do is hunt them.” He talks about how the cops have to fulfill quotas for stop-and-frisks and says, “The arrests must be made. One officer said, I’ve ruined job applications. I ruined this guy’s life, all because they needed a number.”
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One of the most moving parts of the documentary is when Keeshan and some of his friends are sitting up on a rooftop looking out over their neighborhood. They are talking about how the constant encounters with the police affect their lives—how they get out of their cars and get frisked immediately, how they get searched for no reason. One friend says, “What are you gonna do about it? You can’t do anything about it, it’s ridiculous.”
To this, Keeshan says, “Somebody has to stand up even at the risk of their life—for change. That’s what needs to happen And those who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones to actually do it.”
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