Sonali Kolhatkar: Black Women’s Lives Matter: Film Reveals Little-Known Story of the Grim Sleeper - Sonali Kolhatkar - Truthdig

As an invigorated movement emerges against police killings of black men, a timely new documentary examines American law enforcement’s negligence in the grisly killings of black women for over two and a half decades. The HBO documentary “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” by filmmaker Nick Broomfield, delves deep into the story of a man who is allegedly responsible for the murders of African-American women in South Los Angeles.

That man, named Lonnie Franklin Jr., was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department four years ago, and as his pretrial hearing continues at a snail’s pace, Broomfield’s film successfully attempts to indict him for killing untold numbers of poor black women. Importantly, the film also shines a spotlight on the LAPD, and city- and state-level authorities (such as former LAPD Chief William Bratton who now heads the NYPD, and California’s then-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is now the state’s governor), for condoning the killings through a reluctance to investigate or even educate the public that a murderer was on the loose.  Read more here: Sonali Kolhatkar: Black Women’s Lives Matter: Film Reveals Little-Known Story of the Grim Sleeper - Sonali Kolhatkar - Truthdig