We speak to IGotAMonster filmmaker Kevin Abrams about working with victims, police officers, and attorneys to break down the crimes of the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force and how they reflect the flaws in the current American police system:
I Got a Monster, the newest documentary from director Kevin Casanova Abrams, lays bare one of the biggest police corruption scandals in America's recent memory. In 2017, Baltimore super-cop Wayne Jenkins was indicted along with six members of the Gun Trace Task Force.
When we started the project, it was really important for us to really approach it from that angle. That was one thing that HBO’s We Own The City did not do; that was much more through the police officer's eyes; the system and the people with power, as opposed to the people on the receiving end of the dynamic.
It took years. We started filming in 2018, and the film's coming out now. One of the benefits of COVID was our ability to sit back, look at what we had, and then revisit a lot of what we shot as new information came in. We consistently got updates from the police department, the reporters, and everybody involved in the story.
When we first spoke to him, he did not think about rerunning for state's attorney, but in the duration since then, he has won and is currently in office, which is an interesting little footnote. That was one of the things that made us realize that he actually was a pretty significant anchor for us to drape the story on.
When you're looking at somebody's history of performance like that, and then you empower them and reward them with a position on a task force that actually increases their ability to police poorly, it increases their ability to take advantage of a system that isn't monitoring their actions that closely. How could you not expect this type of behavior.
We have several other projects that we are considering in similar spaces as well. I feel like this conversation extends to the behavior in Memphis, and the behavior in Los Angeles; it's a national issue, and it's not just shown in Baltimore. Baltimore is a fascinating place, because of its size, scope, and some of its bizarre socioeconomic positions. Issues flare up there that I think are, in some ways, a litmus test of what's going on in the rest of the United States.
Kevin Abrams: We are lucky that the people that appeared in the documentary were high-ranking police officers, who are very outspoken about the need for accountability within the department. They wear that badge with pride and integrity, and they also want the best for Baltimore and the city. We’ve got a wonderful internal support system when we're filming, and Baltimore is open to the conversation. The people that we spoke to want the city to get better.
One of the great powers of film, in particular, is that it's able to provoke good conversation if it penetrates and resonates with people. That's really all that we're hoping. We know that we have a bit of a fire burning, and we just want to keep throwing some wood on it.
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