I stumbled across this documentary two weeks ago, and finished watching it two weeks apart. It consists of very “intimate” interviews conducted with family members and close friends of this Black man who was killed, and no trial or prosecution taken place…

The documentary is directed by Yance Ford, the sister of the William Ford, the man who was shot. William was a teacher, and if he was still alive today, he’d be a correctional officer. At the time of shooting Yance identified herself as a queer but now, as I learnt, is a transgender man.

It is not just about a family grief and racial inequality, it is also an interrogation of the criminal justice system. This is not the first, this is definitely not going to be the last either. How many lives lost like that went under the carpet?

I think that [The Grand Jury] didn’t care, because my son was a young man of colour. I will always believe that. Always, until the day I die. – Barbara D. Ford

Very much reminded me of a patient that I worked with when I was working in the forensic hospital in north London. He is more than 1.9m tall, big, black. He only came to our medium security ward briefly, from one of the highest security hospital in the country, before he was sent back again, just because he was angry and shouted. He didn’t even do anything violent yet, like many of the other patients would do and would still not be “managed”. Being tall and big can be intimidating, that’s understandable, but how about being a person of colour? Why? I’m quite sure statistics show that there are more White serial killers than any other people of colour. Does this mean we are going to treat all the White people as serial killers…?

Anyway, do watch it if you have a chance, it’s not the kind of true-crime documentary with the most plots but it is likely to make you think…