Coming to Investigation Discovery tonight, Monday, August 6:
SUGAR TOWN
Director:
Shan Nicholson
Premiere:
Investigation Discovery (August 2018)
About:
An investigation into the suspicious death of a young African American man while in police custody.
Long known for its sugar cane production, the town of New Iberia LA found itself the subject of national news and federal scrutiny following the 2014 death of Victor White III. Police claimed that the 22-year-old African American man committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest while under police custody, despite his arms being handcuffed behind his back after being searched for weapons. Faced with this preposterous story, White’s family spoke out, eventually triggering a larger investigation into a disturbing pattern of racially-biased policing under the command of the well-connected Sheriff Louis Ackal. While hewing close to true crime investigative conventions, Nicholson’s film proves both compelling and disturbing as it digs deep into the circumstances behind both White’s murder and the larger inquiry into Ackal’s office, culminating in a truly unsettling display of arrogance and presumed impunity by the sheriff during a tense deposition performed by the White family’s attorney.
what (not) to doc 