When I first saw the trailer for Tales of the Grim Sleeper from documentarian Nick Broomfield I expected something a little different. Serving as an expose on the serial killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper due to what was perceived to be a 14-year hiatus between 1987 and 2001 in which he killed at least ten young black women in South Central Los Angeles. In 2010 the Los Angeles police arrested Lonnie Franklin, the suspected murderer responsible for the crimes and while I thought this man’s possible innocence would be the focus of Broomfield’s doc, it turns out that is merely an itch to scratch compared to the larger wound that appears to be the LAPD’s 20+ year, lackadaisical approach to solving these crimes and warning the public of the potential danger in their midst.
Broomfield and his cameraman begin with a Google Maps shot of Franklin’s house at 81st St and Western Ave in South Central, Los Angeles. We’re told what a neighborly man Franklin was, so much so he can be seen in Google’s Street View talking with someone just outside his front lawn. From here Broom field speaks with his friends, acquaintances and even a member of his family who ultimately gave the police what they needed to arrest him. Other interviewees include family members of some of the victims, members of the Black Coalition Against Serial Murders, Franklin’s attorney, but no one in the Los Angeles Mayor’s office or from the police department would allow themselves to be interviewed, despite having held a press conference, self-congratulating their “exhaustive” efforts, though considering Franklin is suspected in the murder of over 100 women you have to wonder just how exhaustive their investigation was and Broomfield more than gets to the bottom of that.
Largely thanks to the help of two of Franklin’s best friends as well as woman named Pam, a former prostitute and crack addict, we get to know a little more about Franklin, about his tendencies and a hatred that boiled inside him he appears to have kept well hidden from even his closest friends. Yet, as the documentary progresses, even his friends seem a little less willing to profess his innocence as much as they seem unwilling to admit his guilt, seemingly more out of shame for not seeing it than anything else.
Well layered and seeming to do its very best to cover all bases, Tales of the Grim Sleeper doesn’t come across as a one-sided story, though it ultimately ends up being one due to the zero involvement from the police or Mayor’s office. As always, though, their inability to participate says a little something all on its own.
There is no judgment in Broomfield’s approach and people open up to him, crack addicts, current and former prostitutes and, as I said before, a family member I didn’t think would ultimately speak on camera when first introduced. There is no aggression in the way the interviews are conducted, Broomfield isn’t out on a witch hunt, he’s merely asking questions and searching for some measure of the truth and as bits and pieces of his investigation fall into place you’ll be alarmed at just how much the police had to go on several years before ever arresting anyone and how little they did with the information they had.
Yes, this is the story of Lonnie Franklin and the crimes he’s been charged with, but it’s just as much about the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department and the question of why Broomfield was able to find so many surviving victims of the Grim Sleeper and yet the LAPD only has the account of one official surviving victim on record. Better yet, why don’t these people report these crimes to the police?
Better question, would you trust a police department when it takes them more than 20 years to solve a crime they believe may be accountable with the deaths of more than 100 women when the one surviving victim they have on record not only aided in providing a police sketch, but led them to a house two doors down from Franklin’s several years before he was finally arrested? Surprisingly, this nugget of information comes late in the documentary and may not be the most damning.
