"Do women police differently than men?"
A new documentary about women officers in the Minneapolis police department is raising the question...
A new documentary about women officers in the Minneapolis police department is raising the question...
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00:00After George Floyd's murder, it's given me a lot more courage and strength to stand up.
00:08Now my brain is like, you will not tolerate any bullshit.
00:18I always wonder, if that was a white guy, would they have been shot?
00:22I always wonder that.
00:24And it's not just because of police, it's because of this country and what it's been founded upon.
00:31She came into policing because of being, you know, a young black woman with black male friends
00:38and the way they were treated by the police.
00:40So she comes in with a very particular notion that she's going to come in to sort of be different, to change things.
00:47Before George Floyd, I think that she sort of was in this horrible situation of being pulled between being black and blue.
00:56And feeling like, I know that my position in the community, that the people who interact with me are having a different experience.
01:05And that's why I need to be there.
01:07At the same time, seeing, you know, constant police brutality, particularly against people of color.
01:14I think with George Floyd, it really, really, you know, obviously it was so devastating and it was so horrific.
01:20I think that was a real turning point for her.
01:23And she did decide to stay in the department.
01:26But I think she has different feelings about it.
01:29And I think she's more critical of it.
01:45It was a very unusual department because there were women in every rank of the police department.
01:50There was a woman chief. There was also a woman assistant chief who was just coming out as the present chief was coming up.
01:57They felt that they were empowered and they felt that they were going to be respected within this context,
02:02which is actually quite unusual in a police department.
02:05Janay Hartow became the city's first female and openly gay chief nearly five years ago.
02:18But her leadership has come under fire this week following a shooting that she herself said should not have happened.
02:24It came six days after a police officer shot and killed 40-year-old Justine Damon.
02:29The second he got in, he just did not put one single woman in a leadership position, which was sort of really shocking to the women.
02:43I thought I was going to be making a film about women who are in an usually supportive department for women,
02:50even as the department was facing a lot of issues.
02:54And I wound up being in a police department where the women were really losing their power and realizing like, wow, that was just a momentary thing.
03:03There's a scene in the film, which to me is still shocking, that a man in, you know, this is, you know, I guess it was about three years ago,
03:25who had just been nominated to be deputy chief in that department would say that Rodney King had it coming.
03:34The notion that aggression is fun or hurting people is fun was still happening in a training in Minneapolis Police Department in, you know, when we were there in 2017.
03:47So what if people had a completely different paradigm shift and they thought of it more like being a social worker?
03:55I found these crazy statistics going back to the 90s that women use eight and a half times less force, excessive force.
04:08And then I just thought, why isn't anybody thinking about this?
04:12Why is gender not part of the exploration when we're obviously facing a huge issue of police brutality?
04:19It's about respect. It's about coming in. It's about lowering your voice.
04:23I've heard cops so often curse and they'll say it's a tactic to scare people, but it's offensive.
04:31So look, and not every woman is perfect.
04:35Kim Potter just, you know, I don't know how you think you're pulling a taser and you pull a gun, right?
04:55But overall, statistically, women do it very differently.
05:06Most police chiefs will tell you that they wish they had more women, it would make a healthier department.
05:11But like, what do you do to actively change all your recruiting processes?
05:16How do you make it really an inclusive place?
05:19That takes a lot of forethought and intention, and I don't think you're going to see that.
05:24I think there's going to have to be, you know, either federal or local pressure to make them do that.
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