Reggie Yates review

Reggie Yates Life and Death Chicago ~ Review ~

I looked at 'Life and Death in Chicago', a  Documentary made by the BBC on Policing in Chicago, the Documentary is presented by Reggie Yates who is investigating Police brutality in Chicago. At the start of the Documentary He tells the audience that in 2015 9 people were killed by police, he goes on to say that only 1 of 9 were white. I was quite shocked by this as it is no coincidence that 8 out of 9 killed were Black. As i watched further in to the documentary, one man with his baby was talking about his experience with the police in Chicago, he described the streets being like third world countries. Another man was giving a story about a young girl who was laying in a puddle of blood beside her mother,  the man said that the young girl looked up to the police officer, and the officer said "she's dead, get over it". This is very sick to think that the police don't think of the amount of people they effect when they kill one person. However further into the documentary you do find out that the police are slightly misrepresented by the media, as one women who lost her Dad was in the police being interviewed by Reggie, says that  "They go to work, and think to themselves that they are going to shoot someone, in fact thats the last thing they think of doing". Police themselves do fall victim to shootings in Chicago, an I think that there is still a very strong stereotype going around that is, all young black males belong to some sort of gang in Chicago, so the Police only think of the stereotype when they shoot someone. A bit further on Reggie Yates says that there is a shooting almost every two hours in Chicago, this may have changed now as the documentary was set last year, however taking nothing away, this stat is unbelievably horrific and to think that people, whether police or gangs are involved must make everyone else feel extremely uncomfortable in Chicago. Reggie then follows police, with a news reporter to a crime scene, they get there ,and there are lots of police officers at the scene, they put up tape, and stand around for 5 minuets, after 5 minuets they get in the cars and drive off. There could be two interpretations of this incident the first is that the police don't care and believe that the shooting has happened therefore they wont actually need to be there, and the second interpretation is that there are so many shootings that they need to patrol and be ready to stop the next one happening and they have left the crime scene to detectives. It could be either, however I think that it is a mix of both really. Overall once watching the whole documentary it shocks me, this is simply because the stats and stories said in the documentary are so unbelievable they have to be true and if everything in this documentary is true then police in Chicago are given a very poor name. I also think that the police themselves subconsciously know that they are being brutal to a whole stereotype of young black males and females, as they don't want to speak to Reggie about the issue in the documentary at all. i also think that Police do lose many officers in shooting so it is a 50/50 in terms of victimisation.