The Blue Wall

With "16 shots and a cover-up," officer Jason Van Dyke thought he'd gotten away with the 2014 murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The Chicago Police Department, attempting to skirt public outrage over another police killing of an African-American child, fabricated the story that the high school student forced Van Dyke to shoot. But over 300 days later, journalists and activists finally managed to break through the "blue wall" of silence, revealing video evidence that enraged the nation. Director Rick Rowley ushers us through the development and takedown of a vast conspiracy to conceal murder that extended all the way to sitting mayor Rahm Emanuel's office. And now, as the case lingers in court, we are granted a sobering look at the insidious and entrenched nature of anti-Blackness in policing, along with the power that comes from a community committed to seeing that justice is served.