Tales of the Grim Sleeper

I would like to know why some of the members of the community, who were so articulate and vocal about the LAPD and their lack of interest in this case, were not just as vocal towards some of the men we met in their own community, who clearly had associated and collaborated with Lonnie and treated vulnerable women like garbage. I feel the community where Lonnie lived should have taken some of the responsibility too. How can so many women go missing? What does that say about the community? What does this say about how these "friends" of Lonnie feel about the women in their community? It's not just police gross incompetence, it's members of a community that appeared to look the other way or ignore what was happening right under their own noses and not just about the murders either.

It's not bad - it shows that LAPD are incompetent, and that in South Central life is very cheap indeed. Usual Broomfield faux-incompetence. Can't quite prove the allegation that LAPD were complicit rather than incompetent in the non-arrest of a prodigious serial killer.

The impressive thing is the interviews, which Broomfield plays down. He can have people who were hurling insults at him tearfully recollecting, or admitting their own complicity as they realise they cleaned bloodstains or found victims.

I'm surprised some local tough guy didn't take him out, there seems to be a strange reliance on the police, who no-one remotely trusts for anything else, to solve the problem of a serial killer in the neighbourhood - looks like local people who weren't related to the victims didn't care any more than the LAPD.

In July 2010, Los Angeles Police arrested a man on suspicion of murder, yet to date he has languished in gaol without being tried. How come? Lonnie Franklin Junior is a suspected serial killer. He is accused of the murder of a woman in August 1985. Victim number 9 - the only known survivor - was shot in November 1988.

It was not until March 2002 that another accredited victim was found. That near fourteen year hiatus led to the perpetrator being dubbed The Grim Sleeper. Although Franklin is charged with only ten murders and one attempted murder, he is suspected of committing many more. The evidence against him, which includes DNA, looks compelling, but at the moment his lawyers are playing what some might consider an obscene game to delay the inevitable. One of their tactics was to challenge the admissibility of a DNA sample as the fruit of the poisonous tree.

This documentary does not deal with the legal case against Franklin so much as the lives of those who knew him. Interviewer Nick Broomfield is shown around the area by a former prostitute, and meets a wide variety of people, including Franklin's son, who unlike his father is not even superficially a nice person.

All but one of Franklin's alleged victims were black, and all were apparently women a long way down the food chain. This and other factors like the failure of the police to warn that a serial killer was at large has led to the usual claims about race.

This is a long documentary, but one you can watch or simply listen to while multitasking. Doubtless there will be others about this case after Franklin's trial and likely conviction. As things stand, that should begin next month, but don't count on it

I went into expect details of the murders from the Grim Sleeper, but that's not what you get. It's more about the crack epidemic and poor police work in south LA. It's much more of a social commentary than it is a documentary about a prolific serial killer. So don't expect details of the murder, footage of the Grim Sleeper, or any of the standard serial killer documentary stuff. I was disappointed at first, but I learned a lot about how the police basically let the guy go rampant, because the victims were black crack addicted hookers. And they chose not to care.

Nick Broomfield, I gather, is a well-known figure in documentary films, and he IS a little different from what you'd expect. He wanders in and out of the frame carrying the microphone and wearing earphones. He looks like a normal, middle-aged Englishman, moves deliberately, and sounds a little like Donald Crisp might have sounded as he approached adolescence. His voice is calm, dispassionate, and lacks drama. On the whole he sounds like a philosophy professor at some British boarding school, maybe Sidcot. "Next we met Bertrand Russell. Bert is a white-haired socialist. He once drove a garbage truck but is now homeless. Bert, how well did you know Alfred North Whitehead?"

In point of fact, we don't really get to know much about the suspected murderer, Lonnie Franklin. Broomfield has the invaluable help of a key informant, Pam, who takes him on a tour of South Central Los Angeles and calls pedestrians over for a few words about the Grim Sleeper. Without Pam Bromfield probably wouldn't have got as far as he did, since he's white. According to the anecdotes we get from the people on the street, Lonnie Franklin seems to have been one of those fellows who goes out of his way to help other people, although his friends do mention a few peculiarities -- a pile of stroke magazines in the bathroom, a proudly displayed .25 caliber pistol.

If we don't learn much about Franklin, we certainly get a good gander at the neighborhood and its residents. First of all, despite the bars on the windows and the gun shots in the background, it doesn't look nearly as squalid as the black ghetto near where I grew up, in Newark, New Jersey. Anybody moving from Chancellor Avenue to broad sunny Central Avenue in LA would take a deep breath and relax, the way retirees do when they finally step off the bus in Florida.

The police weren't involved in the film, so we get the African-American perspective on events. Generally, the attitudinal set is that the LAPD is incompetent and neglectful of black crime victims. There are exceptions but it's clear that there is a great big wall between the black neighborhood and the police force, as in so many other cities.

Broomfield doesn't show much in the way of political correctness. His informants speak for themselves. As an anthropologist, which is what I am, I would be very careful in taking some of their statements as literal fact.

One of the more admirable features of the film is that Broomfield, despite his narrative voice-over and his occasional intrusion into the images, is no Michael Moore. He's not one of the so-called Nouvelles Egotistes.

I regret to say that on the whole it was a little repetitious and dull. Too many anecdotes from a handful of acquaintances and relatives about what Franklin might or might not have done. It could have been pruned down to a fascinating one-hour show.