Short film featuring families of those killed in Columbus police shootings screened at OSU
The names of Tyre King, Julius Tate Jr., Henry Green and others resonate soundly across the Columbus area.
For many, their deaths speak to an issue that's grown more conspicuous in Ohio's capital city: people — most of them Black — who have been killed by local law enforcement officers.
The 20-minute short film “They Won’t Call It Murder,” directed by first-time filmmakers Melissa Gira Grant and Ingrid Raphael, examines the issue by focusing on the female family members of those who were killed and was screened Friday nightat Mershon Auditorium at Ohio State University.
Artist Vada Azeem, 38,who attended the screening, said the project authentically captured the stories of these tragedies and the emotions felt in those moments and beyond.
"I think they did a really good job artistically in bringing the story together, and I think it evoked the emotions it's supposed to invoke to spark conversation and to move forward."
He appreciated the fact that police were not placed front and center on screen, and no one from law enforcement spoke in the film.
"It was refreshing to not see an officer, to not see a cruiser, to not see any type of representation of the system that needs to be corrected," he said. "I think that was the main thing I took away from it."
The film, part of the Unorthodocs film festival and presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts, delves into the backstories of the victims of police shootings and examines how each of the women felt during those moments and the many that followed.
Putting their voices first was the primary objective of the film, Grant said.
"There's a lot of initial bursts of coverage, and because of the way it happens, it's so tilted toward the police narrative because they just get to the newsroom first," said Grant, 43, who works as a staff writer for The New Republic magazine.
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"Media is also a limited resource, and I felt like the police said what they already had to say," she added. "I read those internal affairs reports. They are very sparce. Basically what we put on screens in captions is about all there was to say."
After chronicling the 2018 death of Donna Dalton, who was shot and killed by former police officer Andrew Mitchell, who was later charged with murder in her death, Grant began mapping out similar tragedies transpiring in the capital city.
Realizing how abundant these cases were, Grant tapped Raphael, 28, an educator and multi-disciplinary artist, to help develop a short film that focused on the women who were most impacted by the incidents.
Friday's screening was immediately followed by a discussion with the co-directors and family members seen in the film, a conversation that further connects residents to their stories, Raphael said.
"When we talk about listening to the people most impacted, this is what it looks like," she said. "We know films won’t solve every problem, but holding community screenings with the people involved in it on screen and talking about it, and the city at the center of it, then we can have a larger conversation.”
The panel included Malika and Derrea King, the mother and grandmother of Tyre King, who died in 2016; Adrienne Hood, the mother of Henry Green, who died in 2016; and Jamita Malone, the mother of Julius Tate Jr., who died in 2018.
During the discussion, the family members reflected on the memories they had with their loved ones, the harsh realities faced by Black men and women in America and what they called the corruption of law enforcement.
"I haven't seen my son in two and a half years, going on three years," Malone said. "I had a closed casket. The mayor, the government, the prosecutor, I blame this city for my son's execution."
While Derrea King believes good cops exist, she said as long as certain officers continue using residents' tax dollars to defend their guilty actions, tragedies like the one she faced will continue.
And at a time when local organizers and crusaders of social justice are needed most, Malone urged these community members to step up to help support and aid the families experiencing these losses.
"I'd like to see people work a little harder," she said.
Raphael said she wants people to address the reality many in the city encounter and, in time, recognize how they can join in the fight against police brutality and injustice.
“I want people to grapple with the reality and the truth within the city and the injustices that live here, but not feel burdened or stuck by them to which they feel they can’t move beyond that," she said.