Victim/Suspect

As "Victims/Suspects" (2023 release; 90 min.) opens, we are introduced to Rachel De Leon of the Center for Investigative Reporting out in Oakland, CA. De Leon stumbles on a story out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama where a young girl gets sentenced to jail for false reporting (reporting a rape that police concludes didn't happen). Intrigued, De Elon starts digging deeper, and finds a bunch of such other false reporting cases... At this point we are 10 minutes into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the second feature-length documentary from director Nancy Schwartzman ("Run Red Run"). Here she follows investigative reporter De Leon for several years, as De Leon digs deeper and deeper into these seemingly incomprehensible cases where victims become suspects. Watch cop after cop manipulate and "ruse" (i.e. Outright lie) these young women, to the point of arresting these young women who came forward to seek protection in the first place. It will infuriate you how this social injustice goes on all over the country. Some might say "but why do these women admit to having fabricated these charges", my answer is to WATCH THIS and you will understand why. This is of course not a new trend, and thousands of innocent people confess to something they never did, after lengthy manipulation by cops and prosecutors. Schwartzman lays it out very clearly from start to finish. Last but certainly not least, a big kudos to Rachel De Leon for her important investigative journalism in getting to the bottom of this.

"Victim/Suspect" briefly played in select US theaters, and then started streaming on Netflix, where I caught it this Memorial Day weekend. If you have any interest in social justice issues, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

This is a heavily intense true account whereby a young reporter explains how the police can sometimes misuse their powers when investigating sex cases.

A person makes an allegation of rape or sexual assault and instead of properly and fairly researching the case some police will incorrectly turn the tables and accuse the victim of making a false report and have that person prosecuted.

Quite shocking how frequently this can happen.

Also, what is disturbing is how the police are allowed to get away with lying to victims and persuading vulnerable people to admit they are the ones at fault when they are innocent.

But then again I ask myself why are police allowed to pretend to be underage children and lie to adults to entice them into sting operations?

Although this documentary could be made more exciting, the subject matter is well handled and worthy of a high rating. Six and a half rounded up:

7/10.

I read some of the reviews and wow some people with the 1 ratings.. yall know those ppl for sure sexually assaulted someone before or support that behaviour or they are cops themselves.

1 person was saying it was a Bait n switch ? Here I'm thinking what Bait n switch? It was exactly as it was said to be.. Police recieve a report of a sexual assault and make an arrest on the victim. That sounds about right if u had even watched the documentary yep.

Another commenter probably on crack starts talkin trash about these women as if they really were making false reports which means they didnt even watch the documentary, all they did was probs watch 10 mins in lol.

This documentary points to a persistent problem in America & some ppl can't understand why victims would be pressured into admitting something? Like really ?

These girls just suffered trauma that cause most to get into a life long drug addiction or suicide n now their being treated as suspects & not even in their right mind probably when in there & their being coerced through ruses that they are the suspect n lying. Have you people really not seen the many many cases out their of adult suspects who were coerced into a confession of committing a serious crime and then found to be innocent?

All you people bashing these victims for how they acted, well I also thought as you did when I was younger, that how can girls suddenly change their story & not be more adamant on their version of events. I was ignorant as you ppl are now, but through time I "learned" alot and now I see things differently. Who are we to say a person must behave a certain way when scared? Suffering PTSD? Experiencing trauma thats so fresh just few days old & then treated like a suspect? Also the interrogation videos in this documentary were incomplete, you think all it took was 1 minute of coercing to change their stories?

Maybe some of you have no idea how police interrogation works but they wear u down over time with repeated questions asked in different ways and when your a victim u cant imagine how scary it is for these underage girls to feel with a grown male cop berating them as lying and a suspect.

I hope you sick people don't ever have it happen to your own family members cause when you go reporting it, the cops just may treat ur wife or daughter or family exactly how they treated these victims and exactly thats how u think of them.

1 out of 3 women are victims of asult and those are just the ones that report it. I believe every parent should sit down with their teenager and watch this documentary.

Young girls and men who report asult every day, but are often written off or worse, criminalized themselves because it's easier than actually investigating the crime. From the time we are little, we are taught to trust the police but sometimes they can re-victimize the victim by either poor training or lack of empathy.

This documentary was extremely informative and well made. It was an eye opener, because I never knew that women who were assaulted were being convicted of "false reporting to a police officer" because of our broken justice system.

As a multiple sexual assault victim, myself.

I'm kind of glad I never came forth to report of my assaults, or even mention them to those I even trust, or should trust.

I have heard too many stories of how victims have been shamed, or have made to feel/think we have deserved it some way (the way we were dressed, acted, mixed signals, etc).

It's truly sad.

More needs to be done.

It's deplorable of what are justice system is. Even more deplorable of our "serve and protect" people are.

My faith in humanity and society is pretty nonexistent, nor will I ever turn to those who I'm expected to trust (LE's) to expect to protect me. I think I will rely on myself to do that from now on.