As the United States reels from the horrendous police murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has released a vivid and timely account of why he famously took a knee in a three-part docuseries about what The Guardian has called “America’s deadliest police.”
Kaepernick is the executive producer of the chilling new Hulu show “Killing County,” which chronicles the deadly excessive use of force by the Bakersfield Police Department (BPD) and Kern County Sheriff’s Office, both in California. According to The Guardian, there were more police killings per capita in Kern County—which sits between Los Angeles and San Francisco and is home to county seat Bakersfield and nearly a million people—than any other US county in 2015.
The series investigates a number of suspicious police slayings of mostly Latino men in Bakersfield. The first is Jorge Ramirez Jr., a former Golden Glove and Junior Olympic boxing champion. Pelon, as he is nicknamed, gets addicted to methamphetamine and spends time in and out of prison. In 2013, after what is called “a standard traffic stop,” Pelon is shot along with his friend, Justin Hargar, who is described by the police as a hardcore criminal.
Pelon’s death devastates his family, and adding salt to their wounds is the fact that for weeks the media repeats the police description of him as a “suspect.” But Pelon’s sister Nicole stumbles on evidence proving that her brother had actually been acting as a confidential informant for the Bakersfield Police Department. Other irregularities come to light, including the role that BPD officer Damacio Diaz played in the tragedy. A minor celebrity, the teenaged Diaz was portrayed by Michael Aguero in the 2015 Disney movie, “McFarland, USA,” about Hispanic cross-country runners, which costarred Kevin Costner and Maria Bello. Diaz admits that the attention from the movie went to his head, and confesses in an onscreen interview, “I didn’t notice when I was crossing the line” after he became a policeman and entered “dark corners.”
At this point in the second episode director Michaela Dowd slyly inserts a shot of a crime scene cordoned off by yellow tape bearing the words: “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.” Dowd has a documentary background, including directing the 2017 LGBTQ+ advocacy film “When We Rise: The People Behind the Story.” She uses conventional documentary storytelling techniques in the well-crafted “Killing County,” including clips from news reports and movies or TV shows, such as John Ford’s classic 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”
There are also lots of original interviews with victims’ relatives, journalists (including reporters from The Guardian, Mother Jones, and local television news programs), activists, and some individual officers—although officials from law enforcement declined to comment. In clearly labeled sequences, performers read texts by the docuseries’s subjects—including letters by deceased victims of police excessive use of force.
Dowd’s docuseries also incorporates scenes from home movies, which humanize the slain subjects and show that, while family members may freely admit that their loved ones were imperfect and made mistakes, they were valued, had good sides, and are sorely missed.
While most of the casualties in “Killing County” are young men, in an especially emotionally moving sequence, 73-year-old Francisco Serna—whom police had been notified suffered from dementia—is gunned down by BPD officers as he reaches inside his bathrobe pocket. But instead of a gun, there was only a crucifix. Like most or all of the other BPD and sheriff’s victims in this film, Serna was unarmed when he was shot to death. His outraged daughter, Laura Serna, laments: “They did not notify paramedics.” Her adult brother, Roy Serna, is troubled: “He was alone. What did he go through? It fucking pisses me off.” Later, Roy breaks down remembering hugging his father when he was a child, and tearfully says, “I wish I can jump into his arms again.”
But instead of remaining passive victims stewing in their grief, the stricken Bakersfield relatives, dubbing themselves the “Justice Family,” unite and organize to do something about the police reign of terror in their California community. “Killing County” shows the power of people when ordinary folks do extraordinary things by acting in solidarity with community activists, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, and the left press. In one scene, they peacefully march inside of the California State Capitol in Sacramento.
Together, these allies influence politicians such as Governor Gavin Newsom and California’s then-Attorney General Kamala Harris (who, in 2023, spoke as Vice President at Tyre Nichols’s nationally televised memorial service, demanding passage of the stymied George Floyd Justice in Policing Act) to change the law and rules.
But as the docuseries shows, despite measures such as consent decrees and ratification of AB 392: The California Act to Save Lives, stipulating “that police officers should only use deadly force when necessary,” police officers and sheriffs continue to flout the laws, shielded behind what narrator Andre Holland calls “the blue wall of silence.” Retired New York City Police Department officer Marq Claxton of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance condemns a “toxic police culture” which cruelly persists, often with impunity.
The series doesn’t mention police unions, nor new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, who represents parts of Bakersfield, and the role that they play in the national debate regarding the role of policing, police brutality, and lack of accountability. However, “Killing County” does depict rallies in front of police stations, marches, candlelight vigils, and other actions, strongly suggesting that grassroots activism and direct action are the means necessary to curb excessive force deployed against the citizenry by those who are supposed to serve and protect them. As Laura Serna proclaims: “I don’t want to be stuck in my depression. … Organizing helps.”
Kaepernick doesn’t appear onscreen in the docuseries, although he has appeared in television commercials promoting “Killing County.” In 2016, the then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback began refusing to stand during the pre-game playing of the national anthem. Kaepernick’s kneeling to protest law enforcement’s killing of unarmed Black people, such as Philando Castile (of Minnesota) and Freddie Gray (of Maryland) incurred the wrath of reactionaries, such as then-President Donald Trump, who urged NFL owners to fire players who protested during the national anthem. Now, through Kaepernick Media, the former pro ball player is clearly and powerfully explaining onscreen what he had been protesting against on the field.
The heroic Kaepernick may have lost his football jersey, but he admirably scores in his ongoing crusade against killer cops with this powerful docuseries now streaming on Hulu.
Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. This appeared at Progressive.org. See the original version at <https://progressive.org/latest/review-%E2%80%98killing-county%E2%80%99-rampell-8223/>
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2023
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