[uncut conversation] CYCLE Documentary Sheds Light on Forgotten Victims of Police Violence

This month, on Laura Flanders & Friends, we’re taking a closer look at criminal justice—through the lens of abolition, accountability, and the power of the creative arts to tell fuller, truer stories.  This week we'll explore a new documentary, CYCLE, that's breaking the silence around police killings.

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Description: Would we know from our media that over 1,000 people are killed by police every year in the U.S.? The stories of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are exceptions, but for the victims we don’t hear about, there’s CYCLE. The newly-released investigative feature documentary from LionArt Media focuses on the 2019 killing of Ty’rese West, an 18-year-old Black teenager from Racine, Wisconsin who was shot to death after being pulled over by a Mount Pleasant police officer for riding a bicycle with no headlights. No videos were taken, the details of West’s death were withheld from the community and the subsequent police report. Made in close collaboration with West’s mother, Monique West, the film follows the story of Ty’rese’s death and the lawsuit that ensued. CYCLE is an invitation, “. . . to interrupt the silence that follows so many cases that never go viral — cases where there’s no footage, no public pressure, and no accountability,” say director Laura Dyan Kezman and co-director William Howell, both Racine natives. Kezman is an award-winning director, DP, and editor, and the founder of LionArt Media committed to telling bold, socially driven stories that examine justice, culture, and civic engagement. Howell is a cinematographer, editor, and director based in Milwaukee. He was the cinematographer of ‘The Rise and Fall of Coo Coo Cal’ and the director of the 2020 film ‘You Don’t Know Me’. Join the CYCLE directors and Laura Flanders for this powerful conversation on police accountability and community action, plus a commentary on the media quiet about Trump’s massive military build-up in the Caribbean.

“. . . We started this film in 2019 with the intention of not making an angry film, but we didn't quite know what the film needed to be yet. Then COVID hit, Ahmaud Arbery was killed, and then Breonna Taylor was killed, and then George Floyd was killed . . . We felt it then, that this was something so much bigger than us in terms of us telling Tyrese's story in that moment.” - Laura Dyan Kezman

“The call to action, that's when I see, more than anything, that we achieved our goal. People are not leaving these theaters angry . . . They're leaving and saying, what can we do? What can I do? What can we do together as people to help create this change?” - William Howell

Guests:

• William Howell: Co-Director, CYCLE

• Laura Dyan Kezman: Director, Editor & Producer, CYCLE

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Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel Sundays 11:30am ET, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio  (check here to see if your station is airing the show) & available as a podcast.

RESOURCES:

Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:

•  Police Violence Against Latinos: The Shocking Data We Now Know:  Watch / Listen:  Episode

•  Jacqueline Woodson & Catherine Gund: Breathing Through Chaos & the “Meanwhile”:  Watch / Listen:  Episode and Full Uncut Conversation

•  The Defund Movement in 2024: Frontline Reporters Separate Myth from Reality:  Watch / Listen:  Episode

 

Related Articles and Resources:

•  ‘CYCLE’ comes home:  Racine premiere unites community in a call for action, by Heather Asiyanbi and Grant Ritchey, July 21st, 2025, Racine County Eye

• Mapping Police Violence: “Law enforcement agencies across the country are failing to provide us with even basic information about the lives they take. So we coll