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- Kid V. Cop
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- KRCB Voice of Youth
You could say this segment really began May 6th of last year, when eighteen-year-old Daniel Vega woke up to find out he was on the cover of every newspaper his brother delivered that morning.
Daniel was "that kid", face frozen in the act of gleefully throwing a
rock at police, featured in the local paper's report on how things had gotten so out of hand on Cinco de Mayo in the Latino neighborhood of Roseland.
In this chronicle of a foretold fracas, Lt.Matt McCaffery starred opposite Daniel, quite literally across the line from him as the Tactical Commander of the police operation in the Roseland neighborhood.
Almost a year later, Vega and McCaffery sat down to talk about what happened, and in the excerpts from their hour plus interview, we hear some answers to the question : how do you begin a dialogue that doesn't yet exist.
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Piece Description
You could say this segment really began May 6th of last year, when eighteen-year-old Daniel Vega woke up to find out he was on the cover of every newspaper his brother delivered that morning. Daniel was "that kid", face frozen in the act of gleefully throwing a rock at police, featured in the local paper's report on how things had gotten so out of hand on Cinco de Mayo in the Latino neighborhood of Roseland. In this chronicle of a foretold fracas, Lt.Matt McCaffery starred opposite Daniel, quite literally across the line from him as the Tactical Commander of the police operation in the Roseland neighborhood. Almost a year later, Vega and McCaffery sat down to talk about what happened, and in the excerpts from their hour plus interview, we hear some answers to the question : how do you begin a dialogue that doesn't yet exist.
3 Comments
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Review of Kid V. CopI appreciated the quality of voices and sound in this piece. I thought there seemed to be long stretches of tape where the officer in question seemed to make what I thought were rather simplistic and condescending remarks about the community in question that should have been challenged. Similarly, the officer seemed to minimize the behavior of deputies toward young people, while commenting in a rather off-the-cuff way that officers would be polite as much as they were allowed to. Officers are bound to a set of professional ethics that involves deescalating conflict, and that should have been addressed. A good piece, but more time could have been spent expressing the community's concerns, rather than allowing the officer's dismissive comments about the protesters ("for kicks") to be supported without context. |
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Review of Kid V. CopWhat struck me most about this piece was the brilliant use of sound--the sounds of the crowd at the beginning that immediately set the scene, the use of music that complemented the discussion taking place, and the sound, which seemed to echo that used at the beginning, that closed the story gracefully. This skillful execution enhanced a topic--the friction between youth and police that sometimes erupts into violence--already rich in emotion. Addressing this topic by interviewing a police officer created an excellent balance between informational and emotional content. Although the piece flows fairly well, using narration instead of the actual interview questions might make the story move even more smoothly. |
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Michael Johnson
Posted on May 25, 2006 at 02:48 PM | Permalink
Review of Kid V. Cop
The premise of this piece is deceptively simple: a cop and a yoiuth sit down to engage in a dialogue, but then the listener discovers that they've met before across confronting side at a protest, the sounds of which run in the background along with a music soundtrack. While I'm one to usually not prefer music in a piece, it kind of works here.
What ever one may think of the rhetoric of the police officer or the nature of the questions from the young interviewer, this exchange is long overdue, and is worthy of airing to present positive action on the part of a young man who could have demomstrated his feelings in a les constructive manner.
Any station featuring a discussion on youth empowerment, or police/community relations would greatly enhance their programming by airing this piece.