Flying Squirrel Community Space

Watch The Force–hosted by Enough Is Enough

Watch PBS’s “The Force”–hosted by Enough Is Enough
Part of the “Intersections of Rebellion & Accountability” film and discussion series!

Tuesday, March 27, 2018
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Flying Squirrel Community Space
285 Clarissa St.
Rochester, NY
Suggested donation: $5
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2070555923222967/

Trailer

About PBS’s “The Force”:
At a powder keg moment in American policing, The Force presents a fly-on-the-wall look deep inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to confront federal demands for reform, a popular uprising following events in Ferguson, Missouri, and an explosive sex scandal.

Filmmaker Pete Nicks embedded with the department over the course of two years to follow OPD’s serial efforts to recast itself. The film spotlights the new chief, hailed as a reformer, who is brought into effect reform at the very moment the Black Lives Matter movement emerges to demand police accountability and racial justice both in Oakland and across the nation.

The Force also follows the journey of young cops in the Police Academy who are learning how to police in a new era of transparency and accountability. Out on the street, the camera gets up close as rookie and veteran officers alike face an increasingly hostile public where dueling narratives surround each use of force. Under scrutiny as never before, these officers respond to a constant flood of 911 calls, and the film reveals the wide gulf between how cops see themselves and how they are seen by the public.

Despite growing public distrust, the OPD begins garnering national attention as a model of police reform. But just as the department is on the verge of a breakthrough, the man charged with turning the department around faces the greatest challenge of his career when a scandal breaks out.

About Enough Is Enough:
The work of Enough Is Enough is twofold. First, we accompany people going through the criminal justice system who have experienced police brutality, racial profiling, and harassment by the Rochester Police Department. We offer emotional and tactical support, demystify the law, attend court proceedings, and provide direct support e.g. rides to meetings with lawyers or court appearances; and secondly, we work toward systemic change in law enforcement through policy recommendations supported by aggregate data and personal testimonies of police violence in our community.

About “Intersections of Rebellion & Accountability” film and discussion series:
Enough Is Enough (EIE) has been an integral part of the campaign to pass the Police Accountability Board (PAB) here in Rochester, NY. It looks as if City Council will act in the spring of 2018. Enough Is Enough and the over 75 supporting organizations and affected individuals have moved into the next chapter of this campaign: getting an ordinance passed by City Council that gives the community control over their police department.

The experiences of systemic police violence, structural racism, poverty, degraded housing stock and red lining, lack of jobs, and inadequate education led many communities of color in cities across the nation, including Newark, NJ and Rochester, NY, to rebel against the oppressive conditions they faced (and continue to face today). Race rebellions consumed Rochester, NY in July 1964 and Newark, NJ in July 1967. Oakland saw the rise of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966 to protect people of color from the racism and brutality of the Oakland Police Department. More recently, in 2009, Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer leading to a week of rebellion and calls for the arrest of the officer. The struggle for racial, political, and economic justice continues in both cities, and across the nation.

Over the next few months, EIE will host several film events and discussions culminating in a panel discussion. The purpose is educational: to highlight current examples of police oversight bodies with substantive powers—conferring power to the community—while offering inspiration and possibilities of substantive police accountability in Rochester, NY. Ordinances passed in Newark, NJ and Oakland, CA essentially include all the powers that activists and community members have been demanding for the last half century, and more recently in the proposed PAB, in Rochester:

  1. The PAB must be an agency of the city, independent of the Rochester Police Department (RPD);
  2. The PAB must have independent investigative authority;
  3. The PAB must have subpoena power;
  4. The PAB must have disciplinary power over officers who are found to have committed misconduct; and
  5. The PAB must have the authority to assess, review, and make changes to RPD policies and procedures.

We began this series with “Revolution ’67” about the race rebellion in Newark, NJ. Then we screened “July ’64” about the race rebellion in Rochester, NY. In March, we will show “Policing the Police,” a documentary updating viewers from 1967 to 2016 where Newark’s new CCRB was passed into law. After this, we'll show “The Force” looking at Oakland’s police department, their history, and their new Police Accountability Commission, a cutting-edge piece of legislation granting disciplinary power among others to the Oakland community. Finally, the series will end with an as yet TBA panel discussion with representatives from Newark, Rochester, and Oakland in April.

The film series has three goals:

  1. to be an educational opportunity to inform the public about the PAB;
  2. to compare Newark and Rochester, the struggles in each city, and highlight the very real possibility of getting a PAB here in Rochester; and
  3. to be a mini fundraiser for EIE.

Documents pertaining to each city will be available for participants to take home and review.

Please join us.

Enough Is Enough!