Series: Say Brother
Program: In the Matter of Levi Hart
Episode: 1120
Date: 1981-04-23
Duration: 00:01:00

Subject: African American teenagers; Discrimination in law enforcement; Police brutality; Trials (police misconduct)
People: Hart, Levi; Owens, Henry F.

Clip Description
Excerpt from the Say Brother program investigating the events the night Levi Hart, a 14-year-old African American youth from Roxbury, Mass., was killed in a police chase. Hart, and two other Roxbury youths had stolen and car. When the officers caught up to them, Hart was shot, arguably by Richard Bourque, in an act of police brutality. Hart family attorney, Henry F. Owens, III, talks about the treatment minorities receive on the criminal side of the court, and the belief police were not going to aggressively pursue the case surrounding the death of Levi Hart.

Program Description
Program investigates the events the night Levi Hart, a 14-year-old African American youth from Roxbury, Mass., was killed in a police chase. (Hart, and two other Roxbury youths had stolen and car. When the officers caught up to them, Hart was shot, arguably by Richard Bourque in an act of police brutality.) Say Brother, in a documentary-style program, interviews Andrea Swores (a teacher of Hart's), Jean Hart (Levi Hart's mother), Judge Richard L. Banks (who presided over the inquest), Dr. Luke G. Tedeschi (who performed the second autopsy on Hart's body), Henry F. Owens, III (the Hart family lawyer), and attorney Frank J. McGee (who represented police officer Richard Bourque in the lawsuit that followed). Program features the additional commentary of state representative Doris Bunte and Saundra Graham, the comments of the Chairman of the National Black United Front Rev. Herbert Daughtry, and dramatic reenactments of the morning Hart was killed and of three testimonials from the legal transcript of the initial inquest investigating the shooting (those of eyewitness Harcourt Lewis, Roxbury youth Darrius Williams, and Boston police officer Richard Bourque). Produced by Barbara Barrow-Murphy. Directed by George Rivera.

Series Description
Say Brother is WGBH's longest running public affairs television program by, for and about African Americans, and is now known as Basic Black. Since its inception in 1968, Say Brother has featured the voices of both locally and nationally known African American artists, athletes, performers, politicians, professionals, and writers including: Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Thomas Atkins, Amiri Baraka, Doris Bunte, Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, Louis Farrakhan, Nikki Giovanni, Odetta Gordon, Henry Hampton, Benjamin Hooks, Jesse Jackson, Hubie Jones, Mel King, Eartha Kitt, Elma Lewis, Haki Madhubuti, Wallace D. Muhammad, Charles Ogletree, Byron Rushing, Owusu Sadaukai, and Sonia Sanchez.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/saybrother/programs/sb_1120