Navajo Police: Class 57

I'm glad to see the Navajo People represented in the mainstream. I grew up next to the Navajo Reservation and am familiar with the people, the culture, and the issues that affect the Diné people on the Reservation. Diné values include K'é (family), hózhó (harmony/balance), and ceremonies that celebrate mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. This doc takes until episode 2 before it points out some of the serious gaps in leadership at the Navajo Police Training Academy, which appear at odds with the traditional Navajo values of balance and harmony.

At one point, a training officer is lecturing the recruits on the impact of domestic abuse and generational trauma, citing the mental, emotional, economic, and physical impacts. This is juxtaposed next to scenes of the trainers themselves shaming, humiliating, discouraging, and belittling their own recruits. It's important to train first responders to get used to stress, but the Academy's heavily discouraging approach from day one focuses on how so many will fail, emphasizes how weak and "mental" they are for showing discomfort, and seems to be pushing out the recruits they so desperately need.

The Navajo Nation is a close-knit community who rely on the values of K'é and Hózhó to keep them grounded to their culture. They're aware of how the loss of their culture has led to many of the problems faced by people still trying to survive on the Reservation. However, the way the academy operates, it seems like there is a notable lack of support to succeed. I'm not even sure what the Academy's values are, except that it's difficult and important to be in control of yourself. At no point did I notice any of the trainers offer helpful advice on how to self-regulate during stressful exercises, how to breathe correctly to control your fear, how to feel feelings without allowing it to control you; instead it was constant put-downs and admonishment for these young people trying their level-best to live up the the impossible expectations set before them.

There's an attempt to tie community values into the training, but the Academy is clearly needing more of its own balance if it's to see its graduating officer numbers rise to the level of need on the Navajo Reservation.

This documentary reveals many shadows ad revelations well beyond the experience of a group of American Indians going tio police school. The devestating rise in crime and violence on drugs. The absolute decline and possible collapse of traditional culture, language, ceremony and familuy support. The Navajo are a people I spent time visiting in the 1980s. I do not even recognize the culture I see in this documenary. The most shocking and painful revelation was that most of the Navajo shown in this video are Christians. The Navajo had one of the most excellent indigenous religious traditions, that all seems gone now replaced with prayers to Jesus. I am an Ojibwe American Indian, like the Navajo, we Ojibwe have our own religious and spiritual traditions that we preserve and cherish. That the Christians have overtaken the traditional relion of Navajo was very hard to watch, to comprehend. This is like watching the victims try to protect themselves, as each cop and candidate is an inheritor of the oppression and denialism of US Federal policy, it is a documentary, well made, about a broken culture using its broken people to inch themselves forward. It is mostly, for me, a very sad and disheartening story.

Imagine watching a docuseries about police and then getting big mad because it's about police. Lol.

The funny thing is it's only kind of about police. It's primarily about an incredible, beautiful and resilient culture that survives despite the best efforts of the United States to grind it out of existence. Heroes--even flawed, traumatized ones--rise up to serve their community (and I'm talking about the activists, the EMTs, the elected officials, the keepers of the traditions every bit as much as the police) and preserve its legacy. Hard to find fault with this effort, and it's made beautifully to boot..

The foundation was culture and pride. As I watched these men and women endure their journey into what I know to be a desperate situation. I grew up on the reservation and the police response has always been a problem. Crime, violence, drugs, addiction are on the rise and very few police to enforce the law. It's a story that we never got to see and it was eye opening. Not just because very few people want to serve but because of the men and women's stories behind the badge. To see the screening process and the initiation wasn't easy to see but I'm glad the recruits are prepared to meet any obstacle in their service. Also to understand Their personal struggles and their reason to serve the Navajo Nation was the icing on the cake. It was a great watch.

I do not watch many documentaries, in fact I do not enjoy them much. This one however is well worth watching. This is about native american - Navajo - police academy. But academy seems to be only minor part of the series. What carried the most weight for me was the life on the Navajos in desert, life without hope and without future, where two best job opportunities are to become criminal, or to join a police. Cadets are trained military style, in fact when I watched it, I saw a striking resemblance of training depicted in "Full Metal Jacket".

For me personally, the most impressive part was in episode 3 when one of the new officers said that during 2 months of being on the job he had to draw a pistol 20 times, and asssault rifle 5 times. This is simply shocking. They are in the warzone. Huge majority of Polish police officers never have to draw weapon in anger during their entire career, but here... every radio call can be your last.

Definitely worth watching.