’Policing the Police 2020’: PBS documentary explores race and policing, defunding, protests, more

Demonstrators clash with police during a protest in Oakland

A new "Frontline" documentary, "Policing the Police 2020" explores issues surrounding police and people of color. In this photo, a demonstrator is shown in Oakland, California, during a protest following the death of George Floyd. (Photo: Reuters/Stephen Lam/Courtesy of PBS) REUTERS

Since the May 25 killing of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck, ignoring Floyd’s cries that he couldn’t breathe, the country has seen massive protests against racism and police brutality. In Portland, ongoing protests became national news, after President Donald Trump authorized federal troops to police the federal courthouse in downtown, followed by Trump’s frequent verbal attacks on the city as a haven for violent unrest.

A new documentary for the PBS series, “Frontline," explores issues surrounding race and policing by focusing on Newark, New Jersey. In “Policing the Police 2020,” Jelani Cobb, a staff writer for The New Yorker who also teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, returns to Newark to see how the city is responding, after a 2016 Department of Justice order that called for police reforms to address a pattern of civil rights abuses.

As Cobb says in the documentary, the frustration of seeing unarmed Black people like Breonna Taylor die, and police not held accountable, has led many to ask whether policing can be done differently.

In Newark, Cobb talks with Mayor Ras Baraka, a college classmate of Cobb’s, who doesn’t support abolishing the police. Baraka says it’s instead necessary to divert funding to social services, and other methods that will allow treating violence more as a public health crisis than a problem to be solved only by policing.

Some experiments seem to be having a positive impact, including a community street team, in which former gang members work in the community to help provide mentorship and de-escalate conflicts. There is also footage of a city meeting, where community members and police officers talk to each other about their experiences.

Cobb also interviews the head of a local police union about a system that seems designed to exonerate police officers from any charges of misconduct. After watching a video of officers roughly handling a suspect, the police union official suggests the officers behaved appropriately, adding that, what with protests and “anti-police this, anti-police that," it’s “a difficult atmosphere to want to be a part of in 2020.”

The challenges of dealing with systemic inequity go beyond controversy surrounding how police treat Black or Latino people, Baraka tells Cobb.

“Every institution in America has the same values that the police department has in America," Baraka says. "The police just got guns.”

“Policing the Police 2020” airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15 on PBS; you can also watch it at the “Frontline” website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/policing-the-police-2020/


-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

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