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BRUTALITY TV
Chilling similarities
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
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Certain moments in the new PBS documentary Every Mother’s Son are disquietingly timely for viewers in Greater Boston. The one-hour film chronicles three deaths at the hands of New York City police officers in the 1990s. All three made headlines at the time: Anthony Baez, killed in a chokehold while playing football in the street; Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times by officers who mistook his wallet for a gun; and Gary "Gidone" Busch, a Hasidic Jew shot outside his home. The tragedies of the men’s deaths, and the unwillingness of the NYPD and the courts to hold the officers accountable, are worth retelling. But the documentary’s strength lies in its focus on the three mothers of these victims, and their ongoing crusades for justice and change. The three disparate women — a Puerto Rican mother of six; a Guinean who came to America only after her son’s death; and a Brooklyn Jew — project a powerful combination of despair and determination. The documentary dwells on the very personal realm of the three incidents and their aftermath. But filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Tami Gold periodically draw back to give us brief glimpses of the context of New York City law enforcement under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. (And, although not mentioned, Commissioner William Bratton, the former Bostonian who implemented Giuliani’s vision.) Giuliani entered office in early 1994 on a pledge to clean up the city and crack down on crime, and Anderson and Gold place the blame for encouraging the NYPD’s behavior squarely on his shoulders. Boston is not, in any way, New York redux — from 1994 to 1999, the Big Apple had 107 civilian deaths possibly attributable to the police’s use of excessive force, the film points out. Here in the Hub, we get edgy over just two such incidents, as we have this year. But when the film talks about the "Street Crime Unit" sent out to use "slam-and-jam" techniques to confiscate guns from people on the street in specific neighborhoods, it’s hard not to think of the current "Operation Neighborhood Shield," and the Boston Police Department press conferences touting the same thing. To find a parallel with the NYPD’s targeting of certain types of people in certain neighborhoods, just look at this week’s passage of a home-rule petition authorizing Somerville police to arrest gang members for loitering. The broader post-9/11 erosion of rights of the accused serves as an unspoken backdrop to the documentary. Speaking of Diallo, who officers say they approached because he resembled a wanted rapist, his mother’s lawyer says, "Who cares if we abuse his rights, and trample on his rights? What recourse does he have? None." Seldom has this been more true than it is now for suspected terrorists. Every Mother’s Son will air on Channel 44, as part of the award-winning P.O.V. series, on Tuesday, August 24, at 9 p.m.
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