As "The Slow Hustle" (2021 release; 88 min.) opens, it's "November 15, 2017" and we hear a frantic 911 call about a Baltimore police officer having been shot, and we then get the body cam footage as cops arrive on the scene. African-American police officer Sean Suiter is pronounced dead soon thereafter. Who did this? How is this going to be investigated? At this point we are less than 10 min into the documentary.
Couple of comments: this is the latest from Baltimore actress turned director turned activist Sonja Sohn. Now 4 years since the death of Sean Suiter, she reassesses what happened in 2017 and in the years running up to those events. It ain't a pretty picture. The Baltimore Police Department is reeling from the 2015 Freddie Gray murder and social unrest, and also from massive corruption, resulting in 8 cops being indicted in early 2017. And what then about Sean Suiter's death? Multiple theories are advanced, which Sohn examines carefully, including by letting talking heads like a seasoned Baltimore Sun reporter and local TV reports give their independent perspective (I don't want to spoil and hence won't say any more on this). But the overall sense and picture is of a large police department being engulfed by corruption and dirty cops, with little to no regard for the population that it is supposed to serve. For shame.
"The Slow Hustle" premiered on HBO a few days ago, and is now available on HBO On Demand, HBO Max (where I caught it) and eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. If you are interested in the role of a large police department within its own community, while also looking at the mysterious death of one of their own, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.