RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Every day, police use tactics considered less lethal to control people in a variety of situations without using guns.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD [film]: Less lethal force can be a range of things like a taser. It can be physical force. The goal is to subdue someone.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: For three years, a team of reporters led by the Associated Press have investigated these incidents across the country. They've documented more than 1,000 deaths over roughly a decade.
RYAN J FOLEY [film]: These are still rare, but it happens more often than the public knows about.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Our new documentary, Documenting Police Use of Force, examines what they found.
DAVID ROSE: We're in the real world. We're real-world practitioners, so we're dealing with a real-world problem.
PROTESTERS: Say his name! Jameek Lowery. Say his name [fade under]...
MICHAEL BADEN: He died from the way he was restrained in the ambulance…
JAMILYHA LOWERY: We love you, bro.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I spoke with the film's director, Serginho Roosblad, and Justin Pritchard, a reporter and editor with the AP. I'm Raney Aronson-Rath, Editor in Chief and Executive Producer of Frontline, and this is the Frontline Dispatch.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Justin and Serginho, thanks for joining me on the Dispatch.
SERGINHO ROOSBLAD: Thank you so much for having us.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah, thank you.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH:
Justin, I want to start with you. This is such an immense project. Can just from a 30,000 foot view, can you tell me what the AP and your partners and all of us did over the last number of years to look at this?
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah, and thank you again for, for having us and doing this collaboration. It's been really a powerful and important piece of work.We looked across a decade in the United States, all across the United States, uh, from the beginning of 2012 through the end of 2021 and tried to find every instance that we could in which someone died after an encounter with police where what's called less lethal force was used. That can be a Taser that can be taking someone down and putting them face down and holding them face down with pressure on their back or their neck, as we saw with George Floyd. We found 1,036 cases that met our documentation criteria, which is not news reports or allegations in a lawsuit, but actual documentation, body cam, police reports, autopsies, toxicology reports, etc. This was, for me at least, an unprecedented 7,000 Public Records Act, uh, request to get these documents and build this database.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right. I mean, it's a really remarkable journey that you all went on. And so, Serginho, you enter the picture as a filmmaker for both the AP and for Frontline, and your job is really to make a film. It's challenging because you're starting with a database of names and people. Those names are people. How did you approach it filmically? Like what was your first challenge and how did you kind of decide the way that you went forward?
SERGINHO ROOSBLAD: Yeah, indeed, as you mentioned, it's pretty abstract to make a film about a database. And so we wanted to get a better understanding of who these people were at the same time, also get a better understanding of what the incident was, what occurred there, what led up to the incident. What we found in the investigation, um, was, especially once we got so much body camera footage, was that in some of these cases the narrative that was written down in the police reports didn't really match up with what was captured on body camera footage. So to speak to people who were there, and also could fill in the blanks of who this person was. Kind of felt like, uh, the appropriate way to go, uh, in combination with the, uh, the database as, uh, as its own character in the film being very central.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Well, I think it would be only Frontline and the AP that would decide that a database was going to be a character in a documentary. And, and I do know those conversations that we all had about that were really, um, unique, right? But Justin, I want to talk about one of the people who was in the database, Hunter Turner.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah Hunter Turner is a very important character in the film and in our in our reporting. He was a young man in Bristol, Tennessee, which is a city known as the birthplace of country music. It's in the foothills of the Appalachians. Hunter Turner was, uh, was a young man who one night when his girlfriend came home from working a shift at Walmart, a late shift, uh, he had prepared some dinner and as they were getting ready to sit down, he began to have a seizure. His girlfriend, uh, called that in and the, the case unfolds from there. What we learned about Hunter Turner, from Mitch Weiss and Kristen Hall, AP reporters, as well as Serginio, was that he was a young man who had never had trouble with the law before. Um, and one night when he had a medical emergency, and paramedics were unable to control him physically, he was seizing. In order to administer treatment, they summoned the police of Bristol, Tennessee to come and help them get him under control.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So in Turner's story, Justin, like many of the others that you all investigated, the medical examiner did rule that the manner of his death was accidental. Um, where did you go from there, journalistically?
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Well, um, yeah, there was, there was so much to unpack in this case. Um, we had a lot of body cam. We had the official reports and the official conclusions. And so there was certainly a good amount of, um, trying to really inhabit the facts of the case, understand what we were seeing done in the moment, what was not being done. Best practices that aren't followed. Uh, we ran the, the facts and the documents in the video by several experts, medical examiners, former medical examiners, police practices experts. Their conclusions were largely in line with Hunter Turner's mother, Karen Goodwin's conclusions when she watched the body cam for the first time. Uh, Mitch Weiss and Kristen Hall, uh, had provided her with copies of this, of this footage. And, um, she watched it by herself, one night in her home. Uh, and what, she concluded, I think was that what the police did in terms of using force was beyond what she had understood at the time. And also, that Hunter Turner did not have to die that night, that the police actions, uh, contributed to the death of her son.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: What have the police said about this case, especially after you all have all of this additional information? I know you tried to get the police to weigh in on this.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah, Mitch and Kristen did, did make the approach to the police. Uh, they were not interested in answering questions or speaking or, nor were the individual officers, uh, made available. Um, we went further than that. Of course, we want to hear from everybody on what their thought process was and what they concluded, why they concluded those things. The medical examiner who called this an accident, um, has since passed away. Okay. Um, and Kristen Hall did speak with the local prosecutor who decided, who declined to, to file any charges. And that, that gentleman said that he had seen the video that AP had seen, and that, Karen Goodwin, the mom had seen, read the reports. Um, and he concluded that, the assessment of the medical examiner, that it was due to drugs in his system, specifically suboxone, which is used to treat opioid addiction and THC, uh, which comes from marijuana. Uh, between those things and, uh, his heart giving out, that was the cause of death. So he, he took the files and he took, said he took the, the material, reviewed it, and, and declined to file, file any charges.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I think if we could for a moment, Serginho, if you could talk about the challenge of going to this family in particular and putting the pieces together in the edit. So we start with this story and we end with it, and you know, we even come to it in the middle. Why did you decide with us, of course, that this could be the story that would ground the film?
SERGINHO ROOSBLAD: This was one of those cases that was like hitting all of the, um, all of the themes that were emerging from the investigation. And so, very quickly, it became clear that this case was pretty major also because the AP were the ones who, uh, unearthed this case. And so we wanted to focus on a case that was not known. Um, there was no media mention of, uh, Hunter Turner's case. Also with the medical examiner, you know, calling this, uh, an accident, a matter of drug toxicity, we had brought it to an expert and, uh, an independent medical forensic pathologist who had concluded that, um, this was most likely not, uh, an accidental death. And so very soon we were like, realizing like, okay, we need to follow this case step by step, and, um, with the fact that there was also like the body camera footage where we could really see moment to moment, what was happening and how the force, um, the force was applied and how the situation escalated. We start with how the mother, how Karen Goodwin saw the event and saw the event unfold. Later we come back to it and we look at it more as from an analytical point of view where we are looking at the body camera footage. And we're talking to, uh, another forensic pathologist who we've asked to review the case. And then later on, we come back with the family, and have a little moment with them, just seeing how they are dealing with their grief. Um, because Mitch Weiss one of the reporters on the Hunter Turner case, but also in the entirety of the, of the project said when people die like this it's very hard for families to have closure because what we've seen is quite often families are left with so many questions, um, because they don't have, you know, the full investigation or they don't have, you know, access to the body camera footage or don't even know how to navigate the landscape to get those documents. I mean, the hole is always big when someone passes away, when a loved one passes away, but when they die like this, where you have so many questions, they're not being answered, that leaves that hole much darker and bigger. And so we have that moment with the family at the end in the film. And that's where we end with, uh, with the family of Hunter Turner. Um, and not knowing what is going to happen after this. Are they going to get a lawyer? Are they able to even get this case reviewed again? For the family, there's a very long road ahead.
[midroll]
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: What were some of the other big findings that you found as you started to look at the database?
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah. Uh, certainly one thing that jumped out was, uh, racial disparity. So in the United States, uh, you have a black population, if you take out the Hispanic black, which is about 12 percent of the population. Uh, and when you compare that to the universe of 1036 cases that we documented, the percentage of people who are black is about 32%. And so you have a big disparity, 12 percent of the population, 32 % of the cases. Um, that is certainly not the first finding of its kind. You know, we've seen across time and across studies that there is a racial disparity, but certainly it showed up in ours.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Well, I mean, it's important to point out that as you looked at the overall number, you were also looking to see what patterns, too, right? What are those systemic issues that are at play here? Serginho, I want to, uh, turn to the case of Jameek Lowery, from Paterson, New Jersey. Tell me about Jameek and what happened to him.
SERGINHO ROOSBLAD: Yeah, Jameek Lowery was a 27 year old man from Paterson, New Jersey, who earlier on in his life was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And so on a night in January 2019, he called 911 saying that he had taken ecstasy and felt paranoid and not feeling well. Um, eventually he was transported to the hospital, local hospital in Paterson. Um, they checked him out, but very soon he was causing a commotion. And so he was removed from the hospital by security. Um, then he kind of like roamed around a little bit in, uh, Paterson, uh, kind of like the downtown area of Paterson and eventually ended up at the Paterson Police headquarters. Um, and then he started filming himself as he was requesting, uh, help and a glass of water. And he was filming himself on his cell phone and he was live streaming it to Facebook. Um, and what we see on that recording is a very paranoid Jameek. Um, he was sweating. Um, you can also see at one point that he's barefoot. So that meant that he was walking around town bare, uh, bare feet. He was wearing his pajamas and this is New Jersey in early January. So it must've been really cold, uh, but still he was sweating, um, and asking for help. The officers. You know, stand aside and are engaging with him a little, um, and at one point the camera turns off and we don't know really what happens from that moment until he basically gets to the hospital. Um, according to the police documents, um, there was an ambulance that was called for him and they transported him from the, um, police department back to the same hospital where he was looking for help before, um, which is a very short ride. Later on, um, the police acknowledged, indeed, that they had used force on Jameek, to keep him restrained in the ambulance. as according to the police officers he wanted to jump out of the ambulance and once he arrived at the hospital, Jameek was unconscious, um according to his family, heavily bruised bleeding from, you know his face was very bloody never regained consciousness and he died two days later. And so this case is — the, the Paterson Police Department didn't have body cameras at the time. So we have no idea really what happened from the moment that he turned off his, uh, his cell phone till he got to the, uh, the hospital. So we really have to rely on what we read in the police documents. And the family retained forensic pathologist, Michael Baden, um, in this case. And he, we interviewed him and he was privy to all of the investigative documents, which included some of the interviews with some of the officers afterwards where they did say and did acknowledge that they, you know, had to use force on him. Um. But eventually the investigator concluded that it was not the police use of force that, um, killed Jameek, um, and basically pointed towards the autopsy. Um, and the medical examiner said that, uh, Jameke had died, um, due to cardiac arrest. Um, and a drug known as bath salts. Um, and that was the, the cause of death and not the, the police violence. However, the forensic pathologist Michael Baden, he disagrees and he does point to several of Jameek's injuries, uh, saying that they contributed to his death and actually led to, uh, to his death.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I mean, it's such, it's such a powerful story. Justin, I was hoping you could help us understand the training element to this. If you could just take a moment to talk about some of the systemic issues that the AP reporters started to look at overall.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Yeah. The thing you have to you have to understand about policing in the United States is that it's not a federal issue. It's up to the States. It's up to the cities. It's up to the departments in terms of exactly how they go about their business. Now, of course the federal courts, the Supreme court circuit courts, uh, you know, set certain guidelines and interpretations, but essentially what officers are taught varies from state to state. It can vary from department to department. That particularly applies to something we looked at, which is what's known as prone restraint, holding someone down on their chest, uh, typically in order to handcuff them if they've been resisting. Um, and then as we see in, many cases, in many instances where this was used, and it was very commonly used in, uh, the deaths in our database. Applying pressure onto that person's back with a knee, with a hand, something like that. Um, the concerns, which have been longstanding, older than some officers who are out on the beat, is that, you know, if, if you're pushing down on someone's chest, two different things can happen. One is they can't take in enough oxygen to breathe and, and have that body function or they can't blow off enough carbon dioxide, which can through a process, uh, stop the heart from beating. And so there's been a long standing understanding within the best practices of policing that if you're going to handcuff someone when they're face down, you should roll them to their side, what's called the recovery position. Some people call it the rescue position so that they can breathe. Uh, and what our reporter, uh, AP reporter Martha Bellisle found was that in a significant number of cases where prone was used, they didn't roll into their side for whatever reason. And then they'll, they'll explain why that may be. In terms of training, we found there's, um, you know, a real patchwork out there and that there can be specific consequences, including when you have people who, as they are in California, where I am, are still training that it's okay to keep people face down, that there's really no risk of these, uh, of someone dying in that position, uh, which is contrary to best practices as the industry, uh, itself, the policing industry itself has been acknowledging for decades.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: You know, thank you both so much for this conversation, but also for the important work that just has spanned so many years at the AP, and it's just a really important piece of work. I'm really proud also of the interactive work that we did with the Associated Press and the Howard Centers. I really think the work that's digital, as well as the film, are just such an important contribution. So thank you, Serginho, and thank you, Justin, for joining me on the dispatch.
JUSTIN PRITCHARD: Thank you, Raney.
SERGINHO ROOSBLAD: Thanks a lot.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Thanks to Justin Pritchard and Serginho Roosblad for joining me on the Dispatch. You can watch Documenting Police Use of Force in collaboration with the Associated Press and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism on Frontline.org, Frontline's YouTube channel, and the PBS app. And we'll have links to the interactive database and all the reporting related to this project wherever you're listening.
