The IndiePix Films November 7, 2017 DVD release of the 2014 documentary "In His Own Home" adds a thought-provoking element to the national discussion of how law-enforcement officers handle confrontations with black people. The 25-words-or-less description of the issue this time is that University of Florida officers shot a black graduate student on arriving at his apartment for a wellness check.
Kofi Adu Brempong is a Ghanaian doctoral student/instructor with an ongoing history of mental health issues when a neighbor calls the university police to report that Kofi is screaming in his apartment. The undisputed account is that the subsequent incident escalates from shooting a bean bag gun at him and tasing him twice to shooting him in the face in a manner that causes severe disfiguring damage. The only physical threat from Kofi during this incident involves holding an aluminum table leg.
The background information that director Malini Johar Schueller provides includes that the shooting comes a few days after a faculty-initiated wellness check on Kofi regarding the same issues that result in the screaming on "the night of." We further learn of a then-calm Kofi checking in with university police a few hours before the shooting.
We also discover that the officer who fires his gun that night is a former Gainesville, Florida police officer at the center of an incident in which off-duty cops throw eggs at black residents. This is on top of another local incident regarding a white officer arresting a black passenger in the course of a routine traffic stop.
The source materials for "Home" include news reports, footage of relevant proceedings, scenes from the hospital room of Kofi, and talking heads who include a student of Kofi and a community activist.
This pure documentary approach support the "Black Lives Matter" thesis of "Home." At the same time, it is important to remember that even propaganda that supports your side still is propaganda.
Schueller makes his point that there is compelling evidence of excessive force but does little to show that race is a factor. It seems that an essential rent-a-cop whose bad judgment is so egregious that a police union cannot save his job following a single incident is likely to be trigger happy regardless of the color of the person against whom tasing is ineffective.
One larger issue, which receives a little airtime, is that campus police forces and even municipal law-enforcement departments should not receive more firepower than they seemingly can handle. It initially is hard to believe that a campus cop needs to be armed with a lethal weapon and cannot call in the literal big guns when necessary.
An even larger issue is the one that the title of "Home" suggests; all of us should be able to feel secure that law-enforcement officials respect the constitutional protection regarding the sanctity of wherever we reside.
The DVD extras include the trailer that provides a good overview of "Home," and deleted scenes that includes an extended interview and separate additional footage of the aforementioned arrest during the traffic stop.
Anyone with questions or comments regarding "Home" is welcome to email me; you also can connect on Twitter via @tvdvdguy.
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