http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur35385.cfm

Paramount pictures is going ahead with its Tulia movie starring Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton. The project appeared to be on the rocks when the Carl Franklin, the original director, walked away. Now, with John (Boyz in the Hood) Singleton signing on as director, “Tulia” is back on track.

The Tulia drug sting of 1999 transformed me from a Baptist minister into a criminal justice reform activist (although I still see myself as a pastor). Friends of Justice emerged as the organized resistance to the prosecution of 46 Tulia residents (39 of them African American) on the uncorroborated testimony of an unsupervized and corrupt undercover officer. You won’t learn about Friends of Justice from watching the Tulia movie, of course; but we were the folks that turned a routine drug prosecution into a national scandal.

I sometimes cringe when I ponder what Hollywood might do with the Tulia story. The silver screen has never let the facts get in the way of a good story, and I’m sure “Tulia” will be no exception. On the other hand, the movie (should it ever reach the theaters) should give Friends of Justice an opportunity to tell our story and share our vision.

Several people have asked me why the media generally tells the Jena 6 story without reference to grassroots organizing. You rarely hear about the work of the LaSalle Parish NAACP (founded, against all odds, in response to DA Reed Walters’ bizarre behavior). You don’t learn how Friends of Justice framed the story for the media and brought the ACLU and other organizations into the fight. You don’t read about the tireless efforts of Tory Pegram of the La. ACLU, or the work of King Downing of the national ACLU office.

Grassroots organizing is deleted from the story for two reasons: time constraints, and the law of dramatic parsimony. Every playwrite knows the importance of keeping the dramatis personnae to a minimum; too many characters and the narrative becomes murky and confusing . Which is why Friends of Justice has never figured prominently in the media rendition of the cases we have been involved in, even when our involvement has been critical. The Tulia movie will be no exception.

Unfortunately, the casual viewer concludes that the system effectively identifies and deals with legal outrages like Tulia and Jena. It doesn’t. The crucial role of grassroots organizing, media relations, and coalition building is not generally appreciated. As a result, the average citizen has no idea how many Jenas and Tulias go down with hardly a flicker of protest because no one outside the system is paying attention.

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/31/carl-franklin-to-direct-snitch/

My moaning notwithstanding, the stars of Hollywood are aligning in a most fortuitous fashion. Director Carl Lewis, the original director of the Tulia movie, may be taking on a movie loosely based on the excellent 1999 Frontline feature, “Snitch” (also the title of the projected movie). Eight years on, “Snitch” remains the only serious media treatment of a serious problem.

In March of 2006, Ann Colomb and three of her sons were convicted of running a crack operation out of their FHA home. The case was built entirely on the uncorroborated testimony of federal prison inmates. Thanks to the intervention of Friends of Justice, and the miraculous appearance of two whistle-blowing federal inmates, the charges were dropped after Ann and her sons had spent three months in prison.

In making it as easy as possible to bust genuine drug dealers, we have made it just as easy to convict innocent people like Ann Colomb and her sons. Snitches are rewarded for telling the story the government’s way, and punished for inconvenient testimony. The snitching issue is currently the subject of congressional hearings–a very promising sign. Hopefully, the “Snitch” movie will bring attention to yet another serious problem with the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice system is so broken that nothing short of a complete paradigm shift will save us. Thanks to little grassroots organizations like Friends of Justice, stories like Tulia, the Colomb case and Jena keep piling up. One of these days people are going to pay attention.

If you appreciate the work of Friends of Justice in Jena, please consider making a donation to fund our grassroots organizing!  You can donate online here, or send a check to the address below.

Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.

Alan Bean

Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court
Arlington, TX 76016
806-729-7889 or 817-457-0025