Terrible docu, they try to push the narrative of systemic racism so hard they fail to see all the contradictions that go against the evidence and interviews they present(ed) during the series as well and just throw it out there as though everyone are too stupid to notice.
Example (spoiler!!) - black people call the police and tell them that someone they know said he killed the white woman...
Docu - it's racist they brought in black boys to interview them and get statements because they were minors and black.
it's also racist that they followed up on the report and eventually charge the guy because he's also black (ignore the fact he has shot a cop in his past too you racist!!)
it was racist they ever looked for a black man that might have shot both Stuarts and killed the pregnant wife even though it was literally what a dying man had told them. I doubt Charles meant to put his own life at risk the way he did but c'mon!!!!... the cops weren't supposed to look at this guy that was almost dead and not believe him?!
I get there is racism in the world, it should never be accepted regardless of the color of skin the person has that it is being directed at, but at the same time trying to take this case of a poor woman and her unborn child and use it as an excuse to push this false narrative of racism is idiotic at best.
The cop they had was just classic... he basically admits they steal peoples money while also essentially bragging about how rough he/they were. I could have listened to how 'good' of a cops they were all day long, better than a comedy show with the main characters that are so stupid they make you laugh because they don't realize what they are saying lol
Another example (Another spoiler!!) - The cops are racist because they destroyed the drywall in the apartment they searched. (ok, they got me on this one, even I was like "WTF? they didn't need to put holes in the walls to search for this dude!"... fastforward (another episode I think, perhaps just later in the same episode) docu series shows that the cops found a bullet hole in the wall of the black man they are searching fro (the one the black people reported to the cops about!), a bullet hole that matched the calibre of bullet used to kill the pregnant wife, so they have to remove the drywall to extract the bullet and test it!!
I will admit I think I went into this series expecting to see soemthing different, something more about the pregnant woman, and was soured by how much they tried to make it about racism. Perhaps they should ahve found another subject, another crime, that actually had to do with racism instead?
I couldn't even say with absolute certainty that Charles' claim it was a black man was racist (although I think it would be pretty fair to assume so) but that just isn't enough IMO especially when things like the black people calling on their own family member occurs and had they not the police MAY have actually gone in a different direction with the other evidence they had, had they not THEN you would have had a much stronger case for racism!, but still wasn't as strong as a 'confession' to family members by the accused and the subsequent notification of said confession to the police by those same family members.
(facepalm)
As someone who came of age in Boston just before and after the Charles Stuart case, this documentary series hit like a gut punch. I was a white kid in an ethnically mixed "border region" between a mostly-Black neighborhood and an all-white one. It is incredible how the filmmakers were able to accurately capture the tension that ran throughout the Black parts of the city in the immediate aftermath of the crime - especially in neighborhoods like mine - as well as the perspective of the white citizens who were feeling threatened by the violence that was raging through the ghettoized areas, and now seems poised to directly threaten them. Particularly haunting to me were the comments made by the unrepentant police detective, who is hopelessly lost in the white supremacist methods and attitudes of his day. I had a police officer in my family around that time and I heard some of the exact same things from them.
For anyone who did not live through this epoch-defining period of Boston history, this series is a must-watch.
Shout by ChrisVIP 5BlockedParent2023-12-19T20:49:52Z
Excellent filmmaking of a tragic story and systemic racism.