After presenting a successful run of documentaries about the socially excluded in 21st Century Russia and South Africa last year (also worth a watch ), Reggie Yates returns for a one-off piece covering one of the most prevalent issues in the United States today: gun violence and police brutality. There’s rarely a week where gun laws aren’t contested in the press, but Yates
Yates spends most of the time travelling around the South and West sides of the city, where gun crime rates are some of the highest in the West; he tells the camera that on 25th May, 54 homicides occurred so far that month, a week before the month was even out.
What this documentary does so well is allowing viewers to essentially put the data to a face as the shocking statistics become entirely more hard hitting when Yates visits family members of the deceased.
In one segment of the program, Yates travels with a journalist picking up police radio signals. In just three minutes, they intercept a call outlining that multiple shots have been fired and a young black man has been killed. Police get calls like this every two hours in Chicago. These scenes prove incredibly hard- hitting, especially at a time when all eyes are on America in the run up to the presidential election. The viewer gets a real sense that black lives are in backwards-shifting turmoil, and we are yet unable to tell what effect the new government will have on combating violent gun crime.
Even when the focus shifts away from the crime scene frontline, and Yates is filmed just walking along a quiet street with an interviewee, sirens ring nearby. This made me realise that the Chicago residents get constant reminders of hate and danger with things like this even if they’re not immediately affected. This proves particularly harrowing – I can’t even begin to imagine the hopelessness that these people must feel about their own and their families’ basic safety.
The documentary ties in rhetoric from the Black Lives Matter movement, with footage from several peaceful rallies where we are made aware that African Americans have got to the point where they do not feel safe in their own cities, or under the hands of the law. However, interestingly the documentary also swings to focus on police officers that have lost fellow colleagues at the hands of guns – as one man says in despair ‘The whole system is broken’.
We’re all used to seeing Yates present the likes of Top of the Pops with his cheery demeanour, but he is amazing in a documentary setting – he carries the program with poise, in what was obviously a very challenging piece of film to present, as a young black man. Life and Death in Chicago is available to watch 24/7 online at BBC iPlayer
Lara Groves
image: bbc