Viola Davis’ ‘Two Sides’ docu-series tackles deadly reality
Viola Davis knows how to make an audience see into the heart of a character, whether a burdened mother in “Doubt” or the flawed attorney in “How to Get Away with Murder.”
She hopes the same holds true for the critical issue examined by the documentary series “Two Sides,” the deaths of African-American men and women in confrontations with law enforcement.
It takes more than a video clip to understand a violent encounter, said Davis, an executive producer and narrator of the TV One program airing at 10 p.m. EST on consecutive Mondays through Feb. 12.
“Despite the fact that so many were caught on camera and so much in the public consciousness, it caused a divisiveness” instead of a determination to find common ground and solutions, Davis said. “We actually need to do something, but it never got to that point.”
As the series’ title suggests and Davis contends, the crisis demands an understanding of what officers and citizens face and, beyond that, the system enveloping them.
Among the cases examined in “Two Sides”: Ezell Ford, 25, fatally shot during a 2016 struggle with two Los Angeles police officers; John Crawford III, 22, shot by officers while carrying an air rifle at a WalMart store in a Dayton, Ohio, suburb; Sandra Bland, 28, who hanged herself in a Hempstead, Texas, jail cell after being arrested during a traffic stop and whose family disagreed with the ruling of suicide. In each episode, law enforcement experts and independent observers discuss the circumstances of the deaths, including explanations of police regulations and procedures, and relatives and friends share memories of those who died and the impact of their loss. The Rev. Al Sharpton, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Christopher Darden, a prosecutor in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, are among those offering commentary along with law enforcement agency representatives.