It’s in the news every day. Some woman shedding tears over the senseless murder of her son in the mean streets of America. But rarely is that bereaved woman a middle-class Jewish mother from the suburbs.
In “Every Mother’s Son,” a one-hour documentary set to air on PBS’ “POV” series, three very different New York mothers confront the ultimate horror — losing a child at the hands of on-duty policemen — and find a way to rise above it. The show airs locally on Tuesday, Aug. 31.
In addition to West African native Kadiatou Diallo and Bronx resident Iris Baez, the troika of sorrow also includes Doris Busch Boskey, a Jewish woman whose son was killed by the NYPD five years ago for allegedly threatening officers with a hammer.
They don’t call the series “POV” for nothing.
“Every Mother’s Son” is unabashedly biased, showing every sympathy to the mothers (who deserve it) while portraying the New York police as a neo-fascist thugocracy run by a cabal of creeps led by hizzoner Mayor Rudolf Giuliani himself.
Being only an hour in length, the documentary cannot possibly probe in depth all three cases. Thus viewers get little more than the bullet-points version of the facts.
In 1994 Anthony Baez was killed by a rogue cop who put him in a fatal chokehold for accidentally throwing a football at a squad car. His mother channels her grief into activism, organizing large community protests. The accused officer is indicted, has his case dismissed, and then stands trial for manslaughter only to be exonerated.
By then a born-again activist, Iris Baez is there for Diallo in 1999 when her son Amadou is killed in a hail of police gunfire with virtually no provocation. The Diallo case became one of the most notorious police brutality cases in recent history, with Kadiatou Diallo emerging as an eloquent spokeswoman for the cause.
Boskey soon joins them. Her son Gary “Gidone” Busch, 32, had become Chassidic in the last years of his life. He also suffered from some emotional problems. In August 1999, police responded to a noise complaint, encountered Busch clutching a hammer in his doorway and pepper-sprayed him. Eyewitnesses said he then ran into the street screaming in pain, holding the hammer above his head. Police pumped 12 bullets into him.
“He was executed,” said one eyewitness.
Like the other mothers, Boskey also became an activist seeking justice for her son and all victims of police brutality. The incongruence of a middle-class white woman leading such a fight points up the pervasive nature of the problem, according to the filmmakers.
There is even a scene of Boskey addressing a group of mostly African American women in Harlem.
With such tragic loss as its subject, “Every Mother’s Son” should evoke plenty of sorrow and pity. Unfortunately, the truncated storytelling dampens the emotion. Scenes of the mothers fainting on the courthouse steps, or of Boskey clutching her late son’s prayer shawls, are affecting, but they whiz by in a flash.
In the beginning of the documentary, co-producers Tami Gold and Kelly Anderson claim that police brutality is a systemic problem, not simply the responsibility of a few rogue cops. That serious and important charge is barely explored in “Every Mother’s Son.” It’s easy to include clips of Giuliani and police officials coming off as indifferent to victims’ families, but viewers don’t get the full context. The subject merits deeper analysis beyond making a pitch for community policing. Gold and Anderson deliver only the surface.
No one could be more deserving of sympathy than Baez, Boskey and the remarkable Diallo (the latter is a luminous presence on screen and may, if she chooses, go on to high-profile global activism). These women have suffered the worst life has to offer and have managed somehow to make sense of the senseless.
Yet heroic as the women are, and gripping as their stories may be, “Every Mother’s Son” does not quite do justice to their quest for justice. Putting up a snide disclaimer that the police involved in each case declined to be interviewed doesn’t let the filmmakers off the hook.
“Every Mother’s Son,” from the “POV” series, premieres on PBS Aug. 17. It airs on KQED Channel 9 at 11 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 31. Information: www.pbs.org.