No Visible Trauma: Hot Docs' free 'For Viola' screening series calls out what may be Canada's most lethal police force
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B Plus
The incendiary issue of police brutality gets a close-up Canadian look in the documentary, No Visible Trauma, an illuminating, if unflattering look at Calgary’s police force over the last few years.
Some of the video footage of police violence is sickening, and they’re treading ground that has polarized U.S. cable television into a constant hate match. But writer-directors Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal’s film, made over five years, is more thought-provoking than merely provocative.
No Visible Trauma, which focuses on victims’ experiences and legal failures, may be considered one-sided, insofar as no one actually defends excessive use of excessive force. Authority figures who appear on camera generally concur that the Calgary police force faces a serious problems of credibility and morale.
Godfred Addai-Nyamekye, victim of a police beating, and now an activist.
Calgary’s mayor, Naheed Nenshi, at a press conference, while reciting the usual our-cops-are-tops message, is heard addressing the global problem of police who have lost the trust of their communities. Former police chief Roger Chaffin, who retired in 2018 (three years into a five-year contract), talks extensively about the responsibilities of the badge and the shame of abusing it. Meghan Grant, a CBC Calgary reporter, offers background of a troubled recent history of the force.
We hear from harder critics, including former constable Jennifer Magnus, who left the force in a dramatic televised speech in 2017, citing sexual harassment and bullying. She describes the use of excess force such as punching a prostrate suspect, as “common.” Her views on Calgary’s police culture are corroborated by Sheila Ball, a Human Resources pro who was brought in to change the bullying culture. She left in defeat after a few months.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Whether Calgary’s cops are better or worse than any other municipal force is difficult to assess. In 2018, the filmmakers report, Calgary police killed five people, more people than police departments in Toronto, New York or Chicago (but too small a sample from which to draw broad conclusions).
The film is less successful when the directors don the mantle of investigative journalists (lists of people who declined interviews, ominous music, implications of political pressure) than when they bear witness to police víctims’ stories.
At the center of the film is the ordeal of Godfred Addai-Nyamekyei Ghanaian immigrant whose encounter with the police one winter night in 2013 turned his life inside out.
After successfully defending himself against a charge of assaulting an officer, Addai-Nyamekye has spent years suing for damages for the physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered.
His desperate voice can be heard on the 911 call for help that opens the film. While driving friends home from a party, his car got stuck in the snow. He had an exchange with a policeman who showed up, and ended up being handcuffed, knocked to the ground and then driven across town and dumped in a strange part of town without a car, in -28C, wearing a track suit.
In desperation, he called 911, and the policeman who showed up ended up beating him. A photograph from the time shows Addai-Nyamekye’s bruised eyes and cut lip, though a police report notes he had “no visible trauma.”
But Addai-Nyamekye, at least, survived. Others weren’t so lucky. We learn from a grieving family of the case of Anthony Heffernan. He was a 27-year-old drug user, who was shot four times in his hotel room in 2015, on a so-called “wellness check” when he failed to check out on time and, purportedly, confronted policemen holding a cigarette lighter and a syringe without a needle. (In the police report language “In response to his actions a service firearm was discharged.”)
The police watchdog, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, determined there was enough evidence to recommend charges against the policeman who fired the shots. But the Alberta Crown’s office decided there was “no reasonable likelihood” of conviction.
We also hear about Daniel Haworth, himself the son of a cop, who died of a fentanyl overdose after suffering a life-changing fractured skull and brain damage in a police beating. A parking lot security camera shows the officer punching the handcuffed Haworth in the head four times, before throwing him head-first onto the pavement. The officer was the same one charged with beating Godred Addai two years before.
The film wraps on an arguably inspirational note, with Addai-Nyamekye speaking at a Black Lives Matter rally last year, pleased that others understand what he has experienced. Another sign of change is an interview with Calgary’s new police chief, Mark Neufeld, who says the right, progressive things about the weakness of the “bad apple” argument when there’s rot in the barrel.
His comments reflect the culture shift that has taken place about police and violence, and while they’re only words, at least he’s not denying the problem.
No Visible Trauma, written and directed by Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal, opens Canada-wide on March 4-April 1, via Hot Docs’ BIPOC screening series, For Viola. The series is in honour of Civil Rights activist Viola Desmond. Tickets are free through the Hot Docs web site here.