According to filmmakers (and many Portlanders), “In September 2006 James Chasse was tackled by three law officers on a downtown street corner before a dozen eyewitnesses. James was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime.
The officers beat him, kicked him, broke 17 ribs and his shoulder. They used a Taser on him repeatedly. He screamed for mercy. The officers thought James was a drug dealer, a homeless person, a non-person, a ghost. They were wrong. James was a poet, a musician, he had a family which loved him, friends, neighbors, dreams and hopes. He was an artist; a small, shy, gentle person. And he was a person with schizophrenia.
James was sent by paramedics to jail. Jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him. A grand jury refused to indict those officers. The City and County refused to terminate or discipline them. Alien Boy is a feature length documentary film about the life and death of James Chasse.”
Street Roots did a feature piece on the first stages of making Alien Boy in May of 2008. The trailer is out.
