Institute History
Description
In 2012, a car backfires as it drives past police headquarters in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The sound is mistaken for gunfire, and a 62-car police chase ensues. It ends when 13 officers corner the vehicle and fire 137 bullets at the unarmed occupants, killing them both. One officer climbs atop the hood of the victim’s car and fires nearly fifty bullets through the windshield. Cleveland is a feature film about a city struggling to reclaim some of its historic stature amidst a string of brutal police killings. With intimate access to the officers who have killed in the line of duty, and to the politicians who define the tenor of the town, Cleveland paints a compelling, nuanced portrait of a city in crisis and examines the triggers and the fallout of these killings from the eyes of both perpetrators and victims.