It’s tempting to see the murder of Rayshard Brooks through the prism of the murder of George Floyd.
Each are officially classified as police homicides; both Derek Chauvin, the officer in the Floyd death, and Garrett Rolfe, the officer in the Brooks death, face felony murder charges and prison time. Both officers were fired from the job. The victims are black, the cops, white. Both leave us examining how we view race, how we train police, and how police absorb that training.
But it’s equally important to look at the differences in the deaths, because they are stark. From the details of the deaths to the cultural questions they raise, this much is clear: Floyd’s death appears black and white, literally and figuratively. Brooks’ death is far murkier.
The New York Times did a fantastic analysis of the Brooks slaying, and it should be read as urgently as the viral videos should be seen. The Times synced footage from police body cams, dash cams, witness cellphones and Wendy’s security cameras to capture the 27-minute exchange between Brooks and cops. The videos are time-stamped, allowing the Times to recreate a “tick-tock” narrative of the incident, down to the minute.
The first thing you notice is the apparent difference in behavior in the cases. Floyd is heard only gasping out a few faint, last words, including calling for his late mother and “I can’t breathe,” while Chauvin kneels on his neck, hands in pockets.
The exchange between Brooks and Atlanta PD is far calmer, bordering on friendly. Initially, Brooks and police appear to show a mutual respect. When asked if he’d be willing to take a Breathalyzer, Brooks says “I don’t want to refuse anything,” and offers to walk to his sister’s house nearby. “I can just go home,” Brooks says.
According to the Times, another officer, Devin Brosnan, at one point “appears to be unsure whether he should let Mr. Brooks sleep in the car or should take further action.”
Even when a struggle ensues between Brooks and police, Rolfe can be heard saying “Stop that. Stop fighting, stop fighting,” Brosnan can be heard shouting, “You’re going to get Tased.” Brooks responds “Mr. Rolfe, come on man. Mr. Rolfe.”
As Brooks struggles to wrest free of the men, police use the Taser stun gun once on him. Brooks wrenches the Taser off officer Brosnan and takes off with Rolfe in pursuit. Brooks fires the Taser and misses. Rolfe drops the Taser, pulls out his gun and shoots Brooks three times in the back. Brooks dies 14 minutes later.
This is by no means a rationalization or endorsement of that police behavior. Rolfe’s instinct — presumably from adequate training — should have been to not draw down on a fleeing suspect armed with only a non-lethal weapon.
But analysts and protesters appear outraged that Rolfe pulled his gun in the first place.
This is the larger societal question.
Imagine someone you were in a serious fistfight with pulled a knife. You happened to have the exact same knife on your belt. But you also had a gun in your holster. Which would you pull? The one that evened the odds, or the one that put them in your favor?
If we are going to have a society with a police force, we are allowing them to exercise discipline at least a level above everyday citizens. If an officer is empowered to put another person in a jail cell, we tacitly endorse them have a “level up” in armament. If an officer is making a valid arrest of a lawbreaker, he or she must be permitted to level up in a struggle with a suspect. From fists to billy club, billy club to knife, knife to gun, gun to automatic, automatic to tank, etc.
Brooks had leveled up to a stun gun. Rolfe had been trained — in a basic behavioral way — to level up to his gun. My mom likened it to the iconic scene in Indiana Jones, when Harrison Ford dismissively shoots an opponent who grandly shows off his sword skills before the showdown.
This is not to diminish or defend the shooting. Rolfe’s instinct — even with his heart pounding and his pulse racing — had to be reluctance; perhaps the training we all demand of law enforcement should be a re-calibration of the term “last resort.” We may need to redefine the term for ourselves.
Regardless, a distinction should be made within the broad brush stroke of anger. If George Floyd’s death ends in a period, Rayshard Brooks’ death ends in a question mark.
The Academy Award for best documentary, feature and short, often goes to the non-fiction movie that not only takes a revealing snapshot of the nation or world, but also changes the way we look at it.
Think Bowling for Columbine, the 2002 movie by Michael Moore and Michael Donovan that examined America’s gun culture, inspired by the Columbine High School massacre. Or An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s 2006 film about global warming.
They’re usually films that have sizable budgets and notable stars. While less spectacular affairs than commercial feature films, documentary features often boast the traditional trappings of Hollywood: Moore is one of the movie industry’s most famous reporters; Truth had Al Gore as its narrator.
This year, however, there is no star, issue or publicity campaign that is going to rival the most important documentary of 2020 — or, perhaps, the decade. Or millennium.
That movie is the the 8 1/2- minute video of the murder of George Floyd, filmed by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier in Minneapolis.
After all, what movie, documentary or otherwise, has sent a cultural ripple like Frazier’s cellphone footage? Consider the impact it’s had on America since the May 25 death:
The city council of Minneapolis has vowed to disband the city’s police department.
The mayors of New York and Los Angeles—America’s two biggest cities by population—announced plans to cut funding for their police forces.
Cities nationwide are set to ban choke holds by police, make all local police shootings subject to review by independent agencies, or reduce police presence at schools. Congress promises similar federal reaction.
State lawmakers in Mississippi started drafting a resolution to change the state flag, which contains the Confederate flag in its upper-left corner.
The U.S. Marine Corps banned displays of the Confederate flag on its installations.
Monuments honoring Confederate leaders have been or will be removed in Asheville, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Mobile, Alabama; Alexandria, Virginia; and Louisville, Kentucky. (The governor of Virginia also announced plans to remove a large Confederate statue in the capital city of Richmond, but the plan now faces legal challenges.)
The city of Philadelphia removed a statue of Frank Rizzo, a former mayor and police commissioner who in the 1970s implored residents to “vote white”; the city of Antwerp, Belgium, removed a statue of King Leopold II, a monarch responsible for countless atrocities in Congo more than a century ago.
The Senate’s Armed Services Committee voted to include a measure in a defense-authorization bill requiring that military bases named for Confederate leaders be renamed.
Corporate leaders, facing criticism for racial insensitivity, have resigned from positions atop CrossFit, the Poetry Foundation, the city of Temecula, California, the co-working company The Wing, the publication Refinery29, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, gave up his seat on the company’s board of directors and requested that his replacement be black; the company honored his request, appointing Michael Seibel, the CEO of the start-up-investment firm Y Combinator.
NASCAR banned displays of the Confederate flag at its races. U.S. Soccer, the organization overseeing the country’s national soccer teams, repealed a rule that banned players from kneeling during the national anthem.
LeBron James and several other athletes and entertainers are forming an advocacy group that will encourage African Americans to vote in the 2020 presidential election, as well as work to protect their voting rights.
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, apologized for ignoring the complaints of African American players for years, and said he recognizes their right to protest peacefully, as Colin Kaepernick had by kneeling while the national anthem was played before games.
IBM ended research into and sales of its facial-recognition software, citing concerns about racial profiling when the software is used in the context of law enforcement; Amazon suspended the use of its facial-recognition systems by police departments for a year, which it said “might give Congress enough time to put in place appropriate rules” regulating the technology’s use; Microsoft pledged not to sell facial-recognition software to police departments until such rules are established.
Walmart said it will stop keeping beauty products marketed to African American customers in locked glass cases; the cosmetics retailer Sephora said it will start dedicating 15 percent of its inventory to products made by black-owned businesses.
The Paramount Network canceled the TV show Cops, which presented a flattened moral universe in which the cops (many of them white) were good and the people they confronted (many of them black) were bad.
HBO removed Gone With the Wind from its streaming service and said it plans to eventually present the movie “with a discussion of its historical context” and a denunciation of its portrayals of race.
You can argue how many of these measures were directly due to that riveting short film. And you can argue the merits of the reactionary steps taken. But, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, there can be no debating this: That movie has forced America — and the world — to examine how it sees race.
Perhaps more so than 12 Years a Slave, the 2014 film that captured Oscar’s grand prize, Best Picture.
The problem is, the viral movie does not qualify under the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ (AMPAS) guidelines for eligibility for an Oscar. Those rules, which were changed this year due to the COVID pandemic, include that an entrant run in “qualifying” theaters if and when movie houses reopen at large. Short of that, the new academy rules stipulate that qualifying movies “be made available on the secure Academy Screening Room member site within 60 days of the film’s streaming/VOD release or broadcast.”
A New Oscar Category
I have no idea whether there’s an effort underway to meet AMPAS’ guidelines to make the footage eligible for an award, but it shouldn’t have to. The Oscars should make a new category to recognize that kind of movie.
After all, viral videos have become part of our moviegoing experience, even if we’re just going to our computers. Just as Netflix and other streaming services have managed to get on the Oscar radar (think Roma, The Irishman, etc.), viral videos have managed to get onto ours. Think everything from the Rodney King beating to Donald Trump’s “pussy grab” tape. They have altered the very landscape of political discourse.
There should be a formal acknowledgment of that impact from someone in the movie industry beyond a celebrity wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. Hollywood directors can be finicky about who should qualify for a statuette (Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan, for instance, vociferously challenge Oscars that do not encourage the in-theater experience, and they make strong arguments. The theatrical experience is unmatched in a theater. And cannot be replicated
But in the YouTube/Twitter/Facebook era, we cannot ignore the impact of seeing something on a screen no bigger than a cellular phone.
Oscar Would Become Relevant Again
If the Floyd video underscores anything, it’s that the time to act is now. And it just so happens Oscar is looking for a way to become once again relevant.
In recent years, the Academy Awards have developed a reputation for being too white, too male, and too out of touch with everyday Americans. And it’s cost the award show dearly in ratings.
Viewership for the 2020 Oscars plunged to a new low in February, with an audience of 23.6 million tuning in to watch the broadcast on ABC, according to Nielsen. That’s a 20 percent drop from last year, and roughly three million fewer than the number of people who tuned in for the 2018 ceremony, the previous low.
Imagine the viewership for the first Oscar telecast to honor a viral video. It would attract young viewers. Minority viewers. Viewers who don’t watch movies. The very people the Academy cannot coax now. The same could probably be said for any film critics circle that makes room for viral videos. If, for instance, the Golden Globes were the first with such an award, which show would you watch if you could only see one?
The Public Service Pulitzer Of Movies
An Oscar for the video with the largest cultural impact of the year could also serve as a sort of Pulitzer Prize for the everyday citizen. The granddaddy Pulitzer is the Public Service Pulitzer, but it does not recognize viral videos either. For once, an Oscar could mean more than an impressive trophy on a Hollywood shelf.
The effect of such an award could be seismic. The public is already infatuated with Hollywood. Think of how many people would begin documenting what actually occurs in their corners of the world. They would illuminate everything from hunger to homelessness in ways that even the most creative filmmakers cannot imagine.
This runs a risk, of course. People may be tempted to stage movies or embellish the circumstances they’re portraying. But America’s Funniest Home Videos has run a similar risk for years, and managed to weed out the forgeries. The Academy could stipulate veracity rules into its guidelines just as it has vets content for other types of films.
Frazier Deserves Recognition
Even on a filmmaking level, Darnella Frazier deserves recognition. Like a war correspondent, Frazier faced immense challenges and dangers, yet displayed profound bravery in making her movie. She confronted the very real possibility of being arrested, Maced, or forcibly removed from the scene.
But she stood her ground, in broad daylight, and openly recorded the injustice she saw unfolding before her. How many filmmakers have demonstrated that much courage, calmness and on-the-spot thinking as Frazier. The list is surely short.
And she’s received so much grief for her actions. Some critics have excoriated her online for seeking recognition or reward for the video. Just look at her tweet following the airing of her movie:
This is a teenager we’re talking about. One who spoke up, stood her ground — and caught more than a little hell for it. Michael Moore even said on his podcast that her movie was the documentary of the year. The young woman deserves a trophy. A raft of them, in fact.
Someday, a Hollywood documentary filmmaker is going to make a movie about the video and the aftermath. Perhaps they’re doing so right now. Netflix may have already secured film rights.
And someday, that film may qualify to officially compete for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Already, I can see the title (which I offer to Darnella Frazier, who has more than earned the right of first refusal): I Can’t Breathe.
But instead of acknowledging the sea change that’s occurring in the wake after her film, why not be a part of it?
Like the rest of the nation, I did not know George Floyd existed until he did not. I did not know about neck-pinning, either — and I was a cop reporter for two decades.
Yet among some police departments, neck-pinning remains a practiced “non-lethal” method of subduing suspects. Like the choke hold. Or stun gun. Or pepper spray. Or rubber bullets.
I have more than a few questions about what happened to Floyd. Like how he went from being handcuffed and sitting against a building wall to laying handcuffed precisely out of view of a police dash cam as Officer Derek Chauvin choked him out for at least seven minutes.
Did Chauvin think Floyd would charge him like a bull and use his skull as a deadly weapon? Is that compliance procedure standard for forgery suspects? Why did none of the fellow officers suggest Floyd had been amply debilitated?
When I was on the cop beat, an officer once demonstrated how effective — and painful — a simple pair of cuffs are at getting you to submit. With a subtle flick of the wrist, he showed me, you can be brought to your knees for fear of your hands snapping off your forearms. When someone dons the bracelets, they can do little within the geometry of pain besides wince. What possibly elevated the threat during that arrest?
Perhaps answers will emerge from Chauvin’s third-degree murder trial, though I doubt it. If the recent spate of racially-fueled incidents — from Floyd to the Hunger Games killing of Ahmaud Arbery to Amy Cooper’s panicked false police report against bird-watcher Christian Cooper — has proven anything, it’s that video surveillance does not curb behavior.
And with a morally corrosive president who dog whistles that “thug” “looting leads to shooting,” that behavior isn’t likely to change. If anything, Trump’s last political maneuver may be to gin up his base into a Civil War 2.0 — now gluten-free!
I’m tired of our impotent condemnations of racism and empty demands for wholesale changes to the way we behave. The mealy-mouthed calls for sensitivity training. When our highest elected official is a racist pederast, do we really expect his yokel fanbase to somehow wise up? Make some specific calls for change, or get off the pot.
And, yeah, this is directed at you, asshole.
Here’s my call for change: A federal law that mandates that any law enforcement officer authorized to employ “non-lethal force” must experience it in training first.
Want to employ a neck-pin? You must first have a 250-pound training commander kneeling on your windpipe.
A choke-hold? Time for a chin up on a billy club.
A taser? Brace for the bolt. Same with Mace, rubber bullets and flash bangs. We’ll see if our definition of “non-lethal” changes.
Shit, expand the tactic to include our military. Before you can waterboard a state enemy, you’ve gotta try the bathwater first. How long do you think Dick Cheney’s heart would last in the drip? Would he still consider it not to be torture?
None of this may have changed Floyd’s fate. But maybe one of those cops would have said enough. We clearly need to become familiar with the taste of the medicine we dole out.
Enough with the fucking lip service. The only way we’re going to move the needle is by stepping on the goddamned gas.
:strip_exif(true):strip_icc(true):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-gmg.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZD4NEBOE6FDLTNBKHFMVQZYEHI.jpg)
