02/17/05

LC050217

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The police shooting of a teenager leads to a change in LAPD
policy, but is that the real issue?

David Cunningham III>> They have to see the people that they
are policing, particularly from more troubled communities in
South Central Los Angeles and East Los Angeles, to see them as
human beings, to see them as people and not necessarily here's
an opportunity to beat someone down.

Val>> And then, angels versus demons, polka versus zydeco, and
a year in the life of a dysfunctional family. What more can we
throw at our FilmWeek critics?

All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> The shooting of Devin Brown, the thirteen year old
African-American boy, marks yet another sad and controversial
killing by the LAPD, but it's also forced the police to rethink
its shooting policy, in particular when an officer should or
should not fire into a moving car. As Kevin Smith tells us, the
Police Commission has now adopted new rules that are hoped will
prevent future tragedies.

William Bratton>> "While we are training our officers and our
training is comparable to what most departments in the country
do. . ."

Kevin Smith>> At the Los Angeles Police Commission meeting,
there seems to be broad agreement that having officers fire
shots into moving vehicles is generally a bad idea.

James Hahn>> "Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle presents
a whole range of dangers to other officers, to unknown occupants
of the vehicle, to other vehicles or other people who might be
on the street."

Kevin Smith>> So the mayor, Chief William Bratton and police
commissioners say issuing stronger guidelines against shooting
into vehicles is generally a good idea. David Cunningham is
President of the Police Commission.

David Cunningham III>> We really can't define every
circumstance when you're going to be able to shoot or not shoot,
but I do think what you want to do is discourage people from
simply shooting because you see a moving car coming in your
direction. You can move out of the way.

>> "Officers are expected to act with intelligence and sound
judgment."

Kevin Smith>> Adopting a new moving vehicle shooting policy
became top priority at the Police Commission after an LAPD
officer shot and killed a young black teenager, thirteen year
old Devin Brown, during the wee hours of February 6. When Brown
allegedly attempted to back the stolen vehicle he was driving
into the pursuing police car, the officer opened fire near the
corner of 83rd Street and Western Avenue in South Los Angeles.
Police say the officer, who's been assigned to desk duty during
the internal investigation, did not know the driver was a child
and did not know he was unarmed. But the shooting spawned anger
and outrage among nearby residents.

Beatrice Oliver>> I don't think you'd shoot somebody just
because they stole a car. You know, I think you finally could
have shot out the tires or something else.

Kevin Smith>> Some, like this man who gave his name only as
Eddie, blamed the family of the young victim.

Eddie>> The family should be responsible. A thirteen year old
kid shouldn't be out at four o'clock in the morning.

Kevin Smith>> But the overwhelming view was that the police
employ a double standard, more likely to use deadly force
against black suspects, and they want the police to stop.

William Crawford>> And instead of getting out of the way and
try to arrest him, they opened fire too soon. The police are
quick to shoot, quick to kill, quick to use excessive force and
say it's justified.

Abdul Khabir>> They have a power and they're not using it
correctly. They don't have the discretion and the care for life
that they need.

Kevin Smith>> The Police Commission President understands the
anger in the neighborhood.

David Cunningham III>> I don't think the community is over-
reacting. I think that the death of a thirteen year old child
certainly is a very compelling circumstance. It wasn't an
indication that the person driving the car was armed and
certainly if their alternative as getting out of the way of that
particular vehicle before shooting and saving a life, I think
that that's the choice that should have been considered.

Kevin Smith>> Chief Bratton publicly stated that there would be
a new moving vehicle shooting policy after LAPD officers shot
and killed a fleeing robbery suspect near Santa Monica High
School back in February 2004, and many have wondered why it's
taken another year and another vehicle shooting incident for the
new policy to be actually submitted.

David Cunningham III>> Certainly you've been working on this
and you needed it to come forward from the department earlier.

William Bratton>> "Use of deadly force and the policies that
govern that use. . ."

Kevin Smith>> In response to the Devin Brown killing, Chief
Bratton moved up the timetable for changing the moving vehicle
shooting policy.

>> "We need to look at the language of our policy."

Kevin Smith>> The current policy simply states "Firing at or
from moving vehicles is generally prohibited." But the new
policy adopted by the Police Commission states "Firearms shall
not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person in the
vehicle is immediately threatening the officer or another person
with deadly force by means other than the vehicle. The moving
vehicle itself shall not presumptively constitute a threat that
justifies an officer's use of deadly force."

William Bratton>> "At all times, we are focused on safety of
our officers, giving them policies, guidelines and training that
they can function safely and ensure the safety of the public."

Bob Baker>> "You cannot take away the rights of a police
officer to protect their life. . ."

Kevin Smith>> The original proposal by Bratton drew fire from
the police union because it implied a vehicle could never itself
be a weapon.

Bob Baker>> But if a suspect with clear intent tries to run
over a police officer, certainly it is now being used as a
weapon and an officer should have the right to defend their life
or the life of their partner or a citizen.

Rick Caruso>> "The life of the officer or the safety of the
officer. . ."

Kevin Smith>> To address the union's concerns, the final
vehicle policy contains an exception "that deadly force could
still be justified where the officer's life or the lives of
others were in immediate peril."

John Mack>> "And I would hope and urge that there not be a lot
of wiggle room. . ."

Kevin Smith>> Urban League President, John Mack, believes a
more specific vehicle shooting policy might have prevented Devin
Brown's death.

John Mack>> He was backing the car, you know, I guess at a
fairly good speed toward the squad car. However, the police
officers were out of the car. They were not in the car.
Therefore, the car posed no harm to them.

Kevin Smith>> The Devin Brown shooting comes on the heels of
another incident that upset many black Los Angeles residents,
the beating with a flashlight last June of suspected car thief,
Stanley Miller. In response to community outrage, the LAPD in
January revised its policy on use of flashlights to state "The
primary use of the flashlight is for illumination purposes. The
use of the flashlight as an impact device is discouraged except
under exigent circumstances and when the use of the officer's
baton is not feasible."

John Mack>> It is important to have a policy, a car chase
policy, now the flashlight policy, because if you don't have a
policy in place, then you really can't hold the officers
accountable for their actions and people are left to their own
devices.

Kevin Smith>> One thing some members of the black community
commend is Chief Bratton's efforts to communicate openly.

Beatrice Oliver>> Well, I think that he's very up-front. You
know, he answers everything. He's on TV a lot and he tells you
how he's dealing with the problem, so at least he's got an open
mind and people kind of know where he's coming from.

John Mack>> And I know that's got to be frustrating, frankly,
even for him, this recent incident, because it's a setback. I
think we were beginning to see some progress.

Kevin Smith>> At the Police Commission hearing, some speakers
like civil rights attorney, Connie Rice, said the problem runs
much deeper than any particular policy.

Connie Rice>> "We have had a seventy year co-dependent,
extremely destructive, dysfunctional relationship between our
poorest communities and in particular the poorest black
communities and this police department."

Kevin Smith>> Even before Chief Bratton, two black police
chiefs, Willie Williams and Bernard Parks, faced an uphill
battle trying to establish trust between the police and minority
communities.

John Mack>> This is operating like an occupation force in this
community, not really respecting young African-American men in
particular and having a different value system. I mean really,
saying it's all right to beat them up. Or yes, in some
instances, even to blow one away every now and then in the
interest of the greater good, it's all right.

David Cunningham III>> They have to see the people that they
are policing, particularly in some more troubled communities, to
see them as human beings, to see them as people and not
necessarily here's an opportunity to beat someone down.

Kevin Smith>> New written policies on vehicle shootings and
flashlights may help avoid tragedies like the death of Devin
Brown, but it will take a change in action rather than words
before relations between the LAPD and the black community can
truly improve. I'm Kevin Smith for Life and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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Val>> Michael Powell is one of the most controversial chairmen
of the FCC. Under his watch, the Federal Communications
Commission allowed media giants to get even bigger and the
famous Janet Jackson incident happened at the Super Bowl. Well,
now a Congresswoman from Los Angeles is urging President Bush to
choose someone very different from Michael Powell this time
around. Toni Guinyard talked with Representative Diane Watson
who is also head of the Congressional Entertainment Caucus.

Diane Watson>> I was there on the day that they voted to
consolidate, and let me tell you the danger of consolidation.
That means that a network can own the local newspaper, the local
radio station, the local TV, as well as national. You get one
point of view and you miss the local aspect of news. We really
want the heartland of America to know what's going on
nationally, internationally and also in their own community and
not have their news spun in the best interest, say, of
Washington, D.C. So we were there and we generated over a
million letters into the FCC. I am looking forward to new
leadership and a new and broader perspective on media within the
FCC.

Toni Guinyard>> But this comes at a time when the FCC is
getting a lot of criticism from different factions saying that
it is no friend to decency, that they'd like to see an even more
conservative approach to what's airing on television.

Diane Watson>> Well, you know, you have to consider local
standards. You have to consider states rights and you have to
consider then a national perspective. I think you do that when
you have the voices heard from every single level of the media.
So that's what we are striving for, that we won't consolidate
and have five major networks making the decision as to what the
standards are, but as many as we can across the country so they
reflect the American value and principles.

Toni Guinyard>> What was lost, what was gained, with Michael
Powell as Chair of the FCC?

Diane Watson>> What I found by attending the meetings and
working with my own entertainment caucus is that there were
views that came from somewhere else. You know, when they
decided to consolidate, they only had one public hearing. They
should have had public hearings in every region of the United
States if they wanted an authentic review of what the people
really wanted. They didn't do that. So I'm hoping that, with
new leadership, there will be more inclusion and more
consideration of localism and I didn't see the leadership
providing that approach.

Toni Guinyard>> One of your complaints is that there has been
what you call a systematic dumbing-down of what is airing on
radio and television. What do you mean by that?

Diane Watson>> Well, there wasn't a whole lot of quality and,
you know, it goes to viewership on a given day. So many of our
reality programs do not appeal to a lot of Americans and the
diversity was lost, so I am hoping that, under a new FCC,
Federal Communications, we will have a new vision, more
inclusion, more diversity and more localism.

Toni Guinyard>> Final thoughts on the tailoring of news
broadcasts to what a specific segment of the population wants to
hear as opposed to what they may need to hear.

Diane Watson>> You know, I find that journalism has taken a
back seat in today's media and that people spin news. You know,
it's made for television. It's made for certain magazines.
It's made for the printing press. I don't see a whole lot of
in-depth thought and insight. When I talk to young people
today, I tell them to read and see with the third eye. What do
you mean, Ms. Watson? Try wisdom. Don't believe everything you
read or see. Think about it and try to connect the dots, but
don't buy everything you see because it can come most often with
a slanted view rather than a more comprehensive view. I hope we
can get back to what journalism really is.

Toni Guinyard>> Congresswoman Diane Watson, thanks so much for
teaching me a thing or two, and thanks for spending some time
with Life and Times.

Diane Watson>> And I appreciate you being part of this.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
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Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm
Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week stars Keanu
Reeves in the title role of "Constantine" based on the graphic
novel "HellBlazer".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> We're joined this week by film critics Henry
Sheehan of henrysheehan.com, and Past President of the National
Society of Film Critics, Peter Rainer. Peter, what did you
think of "Constantine"?

Peter Rainer>> Well, this is a movie that is part of a whole
franchise of comic book derived films that are going to be
coming out within the next year or so. It's sort of the big new
business of Hollywood, not so new anymore. This film, I think,
is sort of midway between being kind of dull and being pretty
good. It has a lot of "Blade Runner" type aspects to it.

Keanu Reeves plays this, you know, sort of guy who's been to
hell and back. He's a kind of exorcist trying to earn his right
to have his wings to go to heaven. He's involved in all sorts
of, you know, satanic underworld expeditions that are very Blade
Runnerish. The whole way the movie is shot, all the sort of
sulphurous darkness and somnolent aspects to it, the way that he
kind of talks like he's in a stupor all the time which is a
direct steal from Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner", I assume
intentionally --

Larry Mantle>> -- Can you say something unkind (laughter)?

Peter Rainer>> Well, Keanu Reeves tends to do that anyway. I
actually was listening very carefully because someone once did
an academic study that Keanu Reeves, in every one of his movies,
at one point goes whoa. I don't think he actually does it here,
so that may be worth seeing for Keanu Reeves.

Larry Mantle>> That would be like Sandra Bullock not taking a
pratfall (laughter). Henry Sheehan, what did you think?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, you know, Francis Lawrence directed this.
He's directed music videos and you can see the music video
influence here in that there is a lot of kind of outstanding
images as Peter mentioned, but they're discreet. They don't
really connect to anything. They don't connect to each other.
They don't really even connect to any action. They certainly
don't connect to the psychological condition of the characters.

And the other outstanding images insofar as there are any are
kind of like comic book imageries like, you know, if Keanu
Reeves' character drops a cigarette, we see it from the point of
view of the floor and the cigarette falling out of his hand,
much the way you see in a comic book. What you don't see is
anything you'd see in a movie. You know, there is movie stuff
missing. That's what's missing from this movie is a movie.

Larry Mantle>> Our second film takes a look at suburban family
life. Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels star in "Imaginary
Heroes".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> "Imaginary Heroes", Henry Sheehan?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, this is a part of an over-persistent
genre in America filmmaking, the unhappy, white suburban family
movie, and the people who work in this genre are out to disprove
Tolstoy's maxim that all unhappy families are different in their
unhappiness. All these families are unhappy in exactly the same
way. They don't communicate, so they're sad and mournful all
the time. This is the Travis family in a leafy suburb --
they're always leafy -- and the handsome, young, successful son
has committed suicide -- it's always the handsome, young
successful one that commits suicide. So we see this family over
the course of a year try to pick up the pieces and carry on.

Mom and dad are played by Sigourney Weaver, very good. Jeff
Daniels, not as good. The big problem is that they don't really
act together. You don't really think of them as a married
couple. You just think of them as Sigourney Weaver and Jeff
Daniels. A young actor named Emile Hirsch is not bad. He plays
the kind of disenfranchised son.

One of the big problems that Dan Harris, the writer-director,
presents us with is this family is mournful all the time, no
matter what they do over the course of a year. They never have
a moment when they suppress their grief. But you know that
that's what happens, no matter what occurs in a family. You
suppress your grief at least for five or ten seconds over the
course of a year. So this movie just doesn't have any emotional
credibility.

Larry Mantle>> Peter?

Peter Rainer>> I think that's a good point, although there are
movies like "In The Bedroom" where, you know, once the tragedy
hits, you have pretty much all grief all the time with the
parents. I think part of it is that, when the characters are as
thin and essentially psychologically as insubstantial as they
are in this movie, when they're grieving all the time, it just
gets old because there aren't enough layers to it.

I think Sigourney Weaver is a phenomenal actress who's never
quite had, you know, the kind of career that she ought to have.
Now that she's of a certain age, she tends to, like many
actresses, sort of shade into these dysfunctional family movies
that, as Henry said, have a real sameness to them. I wish that
she would be a little more triumphal in films and have roles
that -- not "Aliens" so much, although maybe "Aliens" probably
would be preferable to this film -- but, you know, something
that really brought out her true colors a bit more. Not all
this kind of trodden mass-like acting.

Larry Mantle>> And finally, our film that's set two-thirds in
Germany and a third in the Southern United States, "Schultze
Gets the Blues".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> "Schultze Gets the Blues", Peter Rainer?

Peter Rainer>> This is a terrific movie, I think. It's
directed by a first-time director, Michael Schorr. Horst Krause
plays a character called Schultze who is kind of a, you know,
chunky salt mine worker in Germany who is laid off. He's sort
of, I guess, in his late fifties and he comes from a family
where his father was a famous accordionist in polka. He's taken
up the mantle, but one day he hears on the radio by accident
some zydeco music and he just is enraptured by it and starts to
work this into his routine, much to the terrible disenchantment
of everyone around him who feels like what is this. It's like
sacrilege.

But he's really drawn to this music to the point where finally
the townspeople kind of send him off on a sort of scholarship to
Texas and Louisiana to sample the music there as a
representative of the community. What I loved about this movie
is that it has such a tremendous feeling for, you know, peoples'
dreams. Schultze doesn't even quite understand what's come over
him. It's just that he's drawn to this music in a way that is
transforming to him and ultimately to the whole community.

Larry Mantle>> Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, this guy Krause is chunky the way Mount
St. Helens is rumbley. I mean, this guy is enormous and, to see
him in a little Speedo (laughter), is one of the moments of the
picture. I liked the two-thirds of the picture that takes place
in Germany. This movie is very much like a Jim Jarmusch movie
and that deadpan direction, I think, inspires a lot of tension
kind of within the frame among the characters.

While he's in Germany, he made so much kind of silent opposition
from his friends and neighbors to him constantly breaking out
into zydeco music when they're expecting him to play a polka at
the community dance that it's very funny. Once he gets to
Louisiana and Texas, he doesn't really meet that opposition and
the film kind of drifts. Literally, he's on a river drifting,
but I think it loses a bit of its dynamism at that point.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks so much for joining us for another
edition of FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3
KPCC joined by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and
Peter Rainer, the Past President of the National Society of Film
Critics. Please join us next week for our critics' Oscar picks
on the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val>> And, of course, you can hear a full hour of FilmWeek
every Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. on KPCC public radio 89.3.
And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life
and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

Hospice care can make a patient's last days on earth more
comfortable, so why don't more people use it?

>> A lot of times, the first thing that people feel
uncomfortable with us coming is because here they come. That
means I'm dying, whereas you're living. You're still alive.
We're here to help you live.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.