Documenting Police Use of Force (full documentary) | FRONTLINE & @AssociatedPress

FRONTLINE, The Associated Press and The Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism investigate deaths that occurred after police used tactics like prone restraint and other “less-lethal force.”

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Every day, police rely on common tactics that, unlike guns, are meant to stop people without killing them, such as physical holds, Tasers and body blows. But when misused, these tactics involving what police call “less-lethal force” can still end in death.

The federal government has struggled for years to count these types of deaths, and the little information it collects is often kept from the public and incomplete. This documentary is part of a multiplatform investigation from an AP-led team offering the most extensive accounting ever compiled of deaths following these kinds of encounters: 1,036 in the decade from 2012-21. Police say they are often responding to volatile and sometimes violent situations, and deaths are rare.

Drawing on police records, autopsy reports, witness accounts and body camera footage, the film is a powerful and nuanced examination of what an AP reporter calls “hidden deaths.”

Explore additional reporting connected to “Documenting Police Use of Force,” including the “Lethal Restraint” interactive story and database, on our website:

“Documenting Police Use of Force” is a FRONTLINE production with Trilogy Films and Sony Pictures Television – Nonfiction in association with The Associated Press. The writer, producer and director is Serginho Roosblad. The producer is Mike Shum. The AP journalists are editor Justin Pritchard and reporters Martha Bellisle, Ryan J. Foley, Kristin M. Hall, Aaron Morrison and Mitch Weiss. The senior producer is Nina Chaudry. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen, and the Charina Endowment Fund.

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