Which couldn't be further from the truth, in my opinion.
In fact, you'll find, I think,
most African-Americans are quite adverse to gun possession.
In suburbia, I think,
there's some notion that there's going to be an invading horde,
come from either the city or from someplace unknown,
to savage their suburban community.
To me, not only is it bizarre, but it's totally, uh...
unfounded.
And these pistols, curiously enough,
weren't being taken off kids in the city of Flint,
but were being taken off of kids out in the out-county area,
in the suburban communities. And--
I didn't think that's what you were gonna say.
I thought you were gonna say that it's all these black kids
in the inner-city schools that had these guns.
No, that's...
We've never really had many problems with guns in the city.
Not to say that we haven't; we've had some.
But that's never been the biggest problem.
The biggest problem has been the gun possession
by these adolescents in suburbia.
How'd you get a gun?
I stole mine. I stole it from a friend of mine.
His dad owns a bunch of guns.
What we're you doing with the stolen guns?
We went down to Detroit and started selling them.
'Cause I can get, like, a buck fifty a pop for a 9-millimetre.
Oh, really. Who were you trying to sell them to?
Anybody that would really want 'em. Gangs and stuff like that.
- Gangs in the city of Detroit? - Yeah.
- Black? - Uh, predominantly. Yeah.
Yeah. So now you're out now, you're okay.
Yeah, I'm free now. I'm completely clear.
- You can keep selling guns. - I can't keep selling guns.
It's getting too risky. Everybody knows me up here.
People want guns, drugs or alcohol, they come to my house
and that's just too much.
- Yeah, too much hassle. - Yeah.
My favourite statistic in all the research I did discovered
that the murder rate had gone down by 20%. The coverage -
that is, how many murders are on the evening news -
it went up by 600%.
The American people are conditioned by network TV,
by local news,
to believe that their communities are
much more dangerous than they actually are.
For example, here, in this community,
crime has decreased every year for the past eight years.
Yet, gun ownership, particularly handgun ownership,
is on the increase.
Crime rates have been dropping, dropping, dropping.
Fear of crime has been going up, up, up.
How can that be possible? It doesn't make any sense.
But it makes perfect sense when you see what we're hearing
from politicians and seeing in the news media.
So we're, uh, we're right here
on the corner of Florence and Normandie.
It's kind of Ground Zero for the L.A. riots.
Right.
You know, if a couple of white guys
would go down and walk around South Central,
they're gonna get killed.
Which I can tell you is a common perception.
The odds that something's going to happen to us
are really, really slight.
- Minuscule. - Right. Okay.
But you know, if you look up there,
you get a different symbol of the Hollywood sign.
It means something very different
than the corner of Florence and Normandie.
For most Americans and most of the world,
it means glamour and Hollywood, except that we can't see it.
I can't see the Hollywood sign. Where is it?
Right. You can't see it because of something that's probably...
much more dangerous for us right now,
which is the stuff we're breathing.
The pollution that's blocking the Hollywood sign,
we're breathing this.
That's far more dangerous than all the other stuff the media's
- telling us to be afraid of. - Right.
As we left the corner of Florence and Normandie,
I noticed that a number of helicopters
had appeared in the sky.
Within seconds, the news media
- started to arrive. - So what's the story here?
I'm waiting. I thought you would know.
No, I don't know anything.
The Sergeant just told me there's a guy with a gun.
But they're not sure. That's all they told me.
Since there's no action, I'm not getting my camera down.
I just happened to see the chopper, going to another story.
- What story are you going to? - It's a near- drowning.
- It's a drowning? - A near-drowning.
How about a story about how you can't see
the Hollywood Hills because of the pollution?
Could you maybe do a story on that tonight?
Pollution, that's rather good. I find that good.
You can't see it. You can't see anything around here.
If you have to choose between a guy with a gun
and a near-drowning of a baby - you could only be one place--
- I go with the gun. - You go with the gun, always.
Is it all over, here? It's all over? All over?
- Not yet, not yet. - Looks like it.
Just wait for these sergeants down here to come down,
'cause they got all the details.
Okay. Hey, I was just wondering -
I just got here to L.A. today - I can't see the Hollywood sign,
down on the hills there, down Normandie.
You can't see the sign 'cause of the pollution.
- Right. - Is there anybody you can arrest
- for polluting up the air? - Absolutely not.
- Nobody? - No.
Why is that?
Why is that, Sergeant?
He's fighting!
For over a decade,
there has been one show on American television
that has consistently brought black and white people together
in an effort to reduce our fears
and celebrate our diversity.
That show is Cops.
I went to see a former producer of "Cops"
and executive producer
of World's Wildest Police Videos:
Mr. Dick Herland.
Look "liberal" up in the dictionary
and I think my picture's in there somewhere,
So then, you know, why not be compelled to do, you know,
a show that focuses on, you know, what's causing the crime,
as opposed to just chasing the criminals down?
Because I think it's harder to do that show.
I don't know what that show would be.
Anger does well, hate does well, violence does well.
Tolerance and understanding and trying to learn to be
a little different than you were last year does less well.
- Does less well in the ratings. - Oh yeah.
Maybe because we, in the television business,
because we tend to demonize black and Hispanic people,
then those watching it at home are going:
"I don't want to help those people.
I'm not going to do anything to help them.
Because I hate them now, because they may hurt me."
- You know what I'm saying? - I know what you're saying,
I'm not sure that's what we're doing.
I'm not sure we're demonizing
black and Hispanic people, uh... particularly.
I don't think we show black and Hispanic people
as being criminals.
I'd like to say not more often,
but probably they are more often.
But I certainly don't think... We're certainly not trying
to demonize black and Hispanic people.
We show them on the news, we show them on TV,
as pretty scary people.
Yeah.
And I agree. I'd like to see that reversed
as much as possible. I...
- Start tonight. - Well, the thing is,
I don't know how to start tonight.
I don't know how to tell that story.
If I was smart enough to do that...
- I'll pitch you one. - Okay. All right.
Um... um...
Do a show called not Cops but Corporate Cops.
"Corporation man Hey Corporate man
"We're coming out to get you better run while you can
"We're coming out to get you better run while you can"
Uh... I love the idea.
I don't think it would make very interesting reality TV.
Unless we can get those people to get in their SUVs
and drive really fast down the road away from the police.
But I'm telling you, everyone in America
who's got just your basic, everyday job
is gonna love watching the boss
being chased down the street with his shirt off,
thrown to the ground
and a knee to the neck. I tell you, that is gonna get ratings.
Yeah, I'm with you. And if I can find a police outfit
that would prosecute corporate criminals appropriately
and would go after them appropriately... In other words,
what you do to a man who's just stolen a lady's purse
with $85 to it,
than you need to do an appropriate response
to a man who has just stolen $85 million from indigent people,
then, boy, we're gonna be out there filming that.
But as a matter of fact, when police go after the guy
who's just stolen $85 million,
they treat him like he was a member of the city council -
as he may or may not be - and it's not exciting television.
If you could get that guy to take his shirt off...
Right.
Yeah, and throw his cellular phone at the police
as they come through the door,
try to jump out that window, then we'd have a show.
You watch violence on TV in a place like Canada
and you know it's not happening next door.
You watch it here, and you know it is happening next door.
- Right. - I think that's...
I don't know what the difference is,
- but there's a big difference. - Yeah, but why isn't...
Why isn't it happening in Canada?
Why aren't there, you know, 10,000 murders a year?
I don't know, but I want to go to Canada to retire,
or something, 'cause it sounds like where we want to be.
I'd like to find out what that difference is. Wouldn't you?
Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to find out.
Where are you supposed to be right now?
- School. - School.
School.
Aren't you worried about what you're not learning?
Nah, I'm mostly helping everybody else in the class.
- Then I barely get to do my work. - How about you? You're not
- worried about your education? - Well, I've got the textbook.
Why do you think we have so many, uh...
- gun murders in America? - Uh...
I have no idea. People must hate each other or something.
Oh, you mean Canadians don't hate each other?
Well, we do but we don't go to the point of shooting somebody
- just to get revenge. - What do you do?
I don't know. Tease them, maybe.
- Make fun of them, ridicule them. - Throw eggs at them.
How many gun murders in Sarnia this year?
- None. - Last year?
I believe we had one, at the time.
The year before that?
I can't recall what we had in the way of--
Maybe one in the last three years?
- Probably, yes. - Mm-hm.
Very low. Very low for this city.
Well, of course, there's no murders here
because there's only 70,000 people
and it's the kissing capital of the world.
So I went down the river to another Canadian city
that was five times as large as Sarnia:
Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit.
I was sure there'd be more murders in Windsor.
Ever hear of anyone being shot by a gun in Windsor?
No. No.
You remember any murders here?
Uh, there was one a long time ago. Probably--
- How long ago? - Oh...
- In your lifetime? - In my lifetime,
probably around 15, 20 years ago, there was one murder.
In fact, this Windsor policeman told me
that the only gun murder
he could recall in Windsor in the last three years
was committed by a guy from Detroit,
who had a stolen gun from Minnesota.
With nearly 400,000 people in the Windsor area,
there were simply no Canadians shooting other Canadians.
I thought it might be time
for some fun facts about Canada.
I hit the streets of New York to find out what
the average American thought about our friendly neighbour
to the north.
Canadians don't watch as much violent movies as Americans do.
That's wrong.
Hordes of young boys, all throughout Canada,
eagerly await the next Hollywood bloodbath.
Then one of the guy gets his leg taken off.
- Oh, wow! - And there was a lot of girls,
- and naked at one point. - I like that stuff.
- What movie did you see tonight? - Sixth Day.
- With Arnold Schwarzenegger? - Yeah.
Did it make you want to come out here
and play this shoot-'em-up game?
Well... yeah.
There's no poverty in Canada like there is here...
in the States.
Wrong again.
Mayor Mike Bradley Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Actually, we've also had a much higher unemployment rate.
When Michigan rate was running at 4%, we were still at 8-9%,
We seem to have an institutional unemployment rate.
I think there'd mostly be white people in Canada.
Hmm... that's strange, 'cause when I'm in Canada,
I see black people everywhere.
And yellow people, and brown people...
and 13% of the country is non-white.
So the Canadians are
pretty much just like us. And the reason that they have (Toronto, Canada)
so few murders has to be because they've got
so few guns.
- What kind of guns do you own? - Uh, I hunt.
I own rifles and shotguns, and I own pistols.
- Mm-hm. So how many guns total? - Uh... Probably about seven.
- Seven guns? - Yeah.
- Do you have a gun? - I have a few.
- How many guns do you have? - Half a dozen.
You could name how many people that own guns, that you know?
- Two, three, a dozen? - More than that.
There's a tremendous amount of gun ownership.
We're a large country geographically.
We grew up with hunting and fishing being a tradition.
In Canada, with a population of just around 30 million -
there's about 10 million families -
and the best estimate is somewhere in the region
of seven-million guns.
Wow!
Canada was one gun-loving,
gun-toting, gun-crazy country!
- Where can you get a gun? - Uptown, any time I want.
I see you're a Glock owner.
Where can I get a Glock in Canada?
Most gun stores'll sell 'em to you
if you have the proper permits and stuff.
In fact, despite all their tough gun laws,
take a look at what I,
a foreign citizen, was able to do
at the local Canadian Wal-Mart.
- Where's the ammunition at? - Where's the ammunition?
- Yeah. - Back here.
- What kind are you looking for? - You know, like, bullets.
That's right.
I could buy as much live ammunition as I wanted to
in Canada. You take American?
Do you lock your doors?
- No. - Are you afraid of anything?
Sarnia, Canada
- Nah, not really, no. - Do you lock your doors at night?
- No. - You don't lock your doors?
- No. - Well, what do you...
- Are you afraid of anything? - Not really.
- Have you ever been broken into? - Yes, I have. Yeah.
- What happened? - They broke into my home.
I wasn't there. They broke in,
they stole some booze and cigarettes and they left.
So I figure it must've been some teenagers
out to have a little bit of fun. That's all they took, though.
Just some booze and some cigarettes.
Have you ever been a victim of crime?
- Yes. - What kind of crime?
Uh, I've had people walk in while I've been sleeping
and vandalize my home and steal from me.
And that didn't want to make you lock your doors at night?
No. No.
As an American with three locks on his doors,
I found this all a bit confusing.
Even here, in Toronto, a city of millions,
people just didn't lock their doors.
So you don't lock your doors but we, Americans, do. Why is that?
You must be afraid of your neighbour.
Do you ever leave your doors unlocked at home?
- Yeah. - Yeah, you do?
- Where do you live? - Right around here.
- Toronto? - Around here.
- You leave your doors unlocked? - Yeah.
You'd think, as Americans,
that the lock is keeping people out of your place.
We, as Canadians, see it more as, uh...
when we lock the door, we're imprisoning ourselves inside.
You don't want to do that.
Not really, no.
We don't want to... No.
I decided to go unannounced to a neighbourhood in Toronto
to see if this unlocked-door thing was true.
Oh, hi. I'm sorry. Just checking.
Oh, hello!
- Oh, hi. - Hi.
Nobody locks their doors.
Nobody locks their doors in this town.
- You want to lock? - No, no, no.
- Do you like living here? - I like it very much.
- Yeah? And the T-shirt? - The T- shirt too.
This door was wide open. And you're not afraid?
- Should I be afraid? - I don't know. You live here.
- I don't think I'm afraid. - You're not, are you?
- Thank you very much. - All right. No problem.
- I'm sorry about the intrusion. - No, no problem.
- Thank you for not shooting me. - No problem at all.
- Bye-bye. - Okay.
As an American,
I gotta say this all seemed kind of strange.
Until I looked up at the TV
in the bar and noticed what they watched
for their evening news.
They're friends of ours.
We'll certainly listen to them courteously and carefully,
but you don't just make war just 'cause someone says so.
The Canadians weren't being pumped full of fear.
And their politicians seemed to talk kind of funny.
Mayor Mike Bradley Sarnia, Canada
...making sure they have good daycare, assistance for their parents
when they're elderly and need to be in an old-age home,
that they have proper health care that insures
that they won't lose their business or their house
because they can't afford their medical bills.
That's how you build a good society.
No one wins unless everyone wins. And you don't win
by beating up on people who can't defend themselves.
And that's been the approach, unfortunately,
that's been spreading with some of the right-wing governments
across North America. They pick onto people
that can't defend themselves and at the same time,
they're turning around and giving financial support
and tax breaks and tax benefits to people that don't need them.
Where are the indigents in the city? Where do they live?
Uh... indigent... uh...
You act like you've never heard the word before.
There's... We don't have that problem here, really. It's...
So I asked him,
"Could you at least take me to a Canadian slum,"
and well...
this is what a ghetto looks like in Canada.
Is this the same mentality that says, with Canadians, if someone
gets sick, they should actually be able to have health care?
- Yeah. - Oh, definitely.
- Yeah. - Yup.
Why?
Because!
Human rights. Everyone's got the right to live.
You just came out of the emergency room?
Yes, I did.
How much did you have to pay for your treatment?
The bill is covered by our hospital plan.
You're telling me you didn't have to pay anything?
No, I don't.
I have family that lives in the States.
They used to live in Canada and moved over there.
- And it's so different. - They get afraid more easily.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, very much so.
'Cause everybody reacts over there just like that.
They don't stop and think.
First reaction is pull the gun out. "You're on my property."
You know, like...
I don't know. It's just different over here.
- Where do you live? - Detroit.
Come over to Canada here for the night?
Right.
People are more open-minded here, a bit more welcoming.
Feel any difference when you cross over to this country?
Be honest, now, come on. - It's a lot lighter.
The segregation over there is definitely much more--
- In the United States. - ...more intensified
- in the States, yeah. - Yeah.
So you can... You can feel it.
Almost like they just let you be.
That's Canada for you.
Every time I turn on the TV in the States,
it's always about a murder here, a gunfight, hostile position...
I just think the States, their view of things is fighting.
That's how they resolve everything.
If there's... there's something going on in another country,
they send people over to fight it and...
They are the most powerful country in the world, though.
Canada's more just, like, "Let's negotiate,
let's work something out." Where the States is,
"We'll kill you and that'll be the end of that."
Um, if guns were... If more guns made people safer,
then America would be one of the safest countries in the world.
It isn't. It's the opposite.
I heard that 911 call, you know, on TV someplace.
It was horrible. It was just...
'Cause he kept asking, "Where's the shooter?"
She said, "He's gone. I need some help."
The little girl was in there too?
She was on the floor, yes.
And the police and the medics came, or...
By the time the medics were here...
The medics had just come in and I remember him stepping in
and taking over the room. He said, "You have to leave."
- All right. - And then when the meds come in,
when the police come in, you're no longer in control.
- They take over the building. - Was she still alive then?
Her lips had become totally blue.
Back in my hometown of Flint, Michigan,
a six-year-old first-grade boy, at Buell Elementary,
had found a gun at his uncle's house,
where he was staying because his mother was being evicted.
He brought the gun to school and shot another first- grader,
six-year-old Kayla Rolland.
With one bullet that passed through her body,
she fell to the floor and laid there dying
while her teacher called 911 for help.
No one knew why the little boy
wanted to shoot the little girl.
As if the city had not been through
enough horror and tragedy
in the past two decades, it was now home
to a new record: the youngest school shooting ever
in the United States.
On the morning of the shooting,
it only took the helicopters and satellite trucks
a half-hour to show up.
They check in the truck.
You know, we're doing one in 30 minutes again.
This evening, about seven o'clock,
will be a public memorial service. Hundreds of people
will mourn the loss of little Kayla, a tiny little girl
who loved pizza, teddy bears,
and who was taken away from us much too soon. Gina?
Good morning, Christine. The funeral home now passing out
tens of thousands of these pink ribbons
to support the young girl's family.
Today will be an emotional day and has been already,
remembering little Kayla.
Jeff Ross, Fox-2 News.
Nice job.
Yeah, Michelle, we're having technical problems, okay?
Well, don't talk to me about it, call our sat truck.
I need a haircut, man.
I'm a pig. A rug.
Here we go.
Some too choked up even to speak about it.
There's a memorial service scheduled here
for seven o'clock tonight.
We're live in Flint, Michigan, this afternoon.
Jeff Ross, Q-13 Reports.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Want some hairspray?
- I kind of need it, don't I? - Yeah, you do,
I got some...
I have some. I just didn't put it in. I didn't have a chance.
I have hurricane-proof hairspray.
This man prayed for Kayla then let the balloon go.
I say we have the colour picture,
not the black-and-white.
Plenty of media here that covered Columbine.
You know, there are some networks, especially,
that go from, unfortunately, tragedy to tragedy.
And, uh, I feel bad for them. Because that's all they see...
The tragedies.
We're just trying to crunch right now
for the five and the six.
Today, we're feeding CNN and Fox, so...
The national media had never visited Buell Elementary,
or the Beecher school district in which it sat,
or this part of Flint ever before.
And few, if any, of these reporters bothered to visit it
even when they were here now.
If they had ventured just a block away from the school
or the funeral home, they might have seen
a different kind of tragedy that, perhaps, would contain
some answers as to why this little girl was dead.
For over 20 years, this impoverished area,
in the hometown
of the world's largest corporation,
had been ignored as completely as it had been destroyed.
With 87% of the students living below
the official poverty line,
Buell and Beecher, and Flint, did not fit into
the accepted and widely circulated story line
put forth by the nation's media.
That being the one about America
and its invincible economy.
The number-one cause of death among young people
in this part of Flint was homicide. The football field,
at Flint-Beecher, was sponsored by a funeral home.
The kids at Beecher have won
13 state track championships,
but they've never had
a home track meet.
Because around the football field,
all they have is this dirt ring.
Years ago, someone here named the streets,
in this part of town, after all the Ivy League schools,
as if they had dreamed of better days
and something greater for themselves.
The children are doing well.
The faculty and staff are doing well.
But we don't forget.
We don't forget.
Just don't want this happening to anybody else, you know?
It's...
I know.
I know. I don't want it to happen to anybody else either.
- Hmm... - It's okay. It's okay.
It's okay.
- I'm sorry. - That's all right.
...from my cold, dead hands!
Just as he did
after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up
in Flint to have a big pro-gun rally.
Freedom has never seen
greater peril nor needed you more urgently
to come to her defence than now.
Before he came to Flint, Heston was interviewed
by the Georgetown Hoya about Kayla's death,
and even his own NRA website talked about it.
We wanted to let the NRA know that we haven't forgotten
about Kayla Rolland.
How could they come here? To me, it's like they're rubbing
our nose in it. I was shocked
and appalled that they would come here.
Heston was asked by a local reporter why he came to Flint
after the tragedy at Buell,
and what did the NRA have to say
about six-year-olds using guns.
We spend $20 million every year
and then we teach you... to five and six-year-olds,
we say, "If you see a gun, don't touch it,
leave the room, call an adult."
And then Moses himself showed up.
Right here in the city of Flint?
Right here in Flint.
Were there people that wanted you to try this child,
Arthur Busch County Prosecutor, Flint, Michigan
- or even try him as an adult? - Oh... Oh, yeah.
There were people from all over America that wrote and called
and sent mail and... It was amazing to me, um...
groups that were affiliated with the NRA -
groups, you know, people that I call "gun nuts" -
writing me and telling me what a horrible thing it was
that I had admonished homeowners in our country
to be careful about bringing weapons into their home.
They wanted this little boy hung from the highest tree.
I mean, there was such an undercurrent of racism
and hate and anger.
It was ugly.
That's a picture that the little boy that was involved
in the Buell-school shooting...
Once he was brought back here to our office,
about 15 minutes after the shooting took place,
I gave him some crayons to kind of occupy him a little bit.
Michael Caldwell Police Detective
He came over and drew that picture for me.
Because at the time, I had pictures right behind my desk
that my children had drew for me and he wanted to draw me one.
This is what he drew for you. What did he say this was?
That's him at his house.
That's him at his house, right here.
And why did you decide to hang on to it?
Because of the gravity of the situation and what had occurred
and he asked me to hang that behind my desk,
so I put it in a frame and that's where it'll stay.
Tamarla Owens was the mother of the six-year-old boy.
In order to get food stamps and health care for her children,
Tamarla was forced to work as part of the state of Michigan's
Welfare-to-Work Program.
This program was so successful
in tossing poor people off welfare
that it's founder,
Gerald Miller, was soon hired
by the number-one firm in the country that states turned to
to privatize their welfare systems.
That firm was Lockheed Martin. With the cold war over
and no enemy left to frighten the public,
Lockheed had found the perfect way to diversify
and the perfect way
to profit from people's fears,
with an enemy much closer to home:
poor black mothers
like Tamarla Owens.
We've got a one-parent family and the mother's travelling 60 miles.
Sheriff Robert Pickell Flint, Michigan
An hour, an hour and a half away to go to work
an hour, an hour and a half to come home.
How does that help a community? But that's part of the state...
you know, making parents responsible, making them work--
- Welfare to work. - Welfare to work.
That's a program that ought to be stopped
because it really has no merit.
I think it adds more to the problem
than it does to solve it.
- Really? - I do.
You're the sheriff and you feel this way.
I do, I do. I wish I could put two parents in every home
and make every parent equally responsible,
but I can't do that.
But we're not doing anything by taking one parent
and putting them on a bus and sending them out of town
to make $5.50 an hour.
This is the bus that she was forced to ride every day
in order to work off the welfare money
the state had given her.
She, and many others from Flint who were poor,
would make the 80-mile round-trip journey every day,
from Flint to Auburn Hills, in Oakland County,
one of the wealthiest areas in the country.
Tamarla would leave
early in the morning and return late at night,
rarely seeing her young children.
What's the point in doing that? Where does the state benefit?
Where does Flint and Genesee County benefit from that?
We have a child dead. I think that may be, in part,
part of the problem.
We drove the one parent out.
Now, you or anybody else that can tell me
that that best serves the community,
I shake my head and wonder why.
How long you been riding the bus?
I've been working here
- just about three years now. - About three years?
Yeah. My brother... I got my brother working here,
half of my neighbourhood works out here.
Just about everybody I know personally works in the mall.
In Flint, doing the same thing I'm doing now,
they only pay minimum wage in Flint. I come 40 miles
to make three or four dollars more an hour.
- How much do you make an hour? - I make 8.50 now.
Is that enough to pay the bills?
No.
So did you know Tamarla Owens,
the woman whose son shot the little girl?
- I think she rode this bus. - I knew her a little bit.
- Not real good. - Nice lady?
Yeah, she was okay. She came to work every day, did her job.
- She worked two jobs, so... - She worked two jobs?
She was trying to make ends meet.
"We're going hopping We're going hopping today
"Where things are popping...
This is Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill,
where Tamarla worked one of her two jobs.
"On the Bandstand Bandstand"
I think she worked in this room here, as a bartender,
fountain-person making drinks, making shakes, desserts.
- Was she a good employee? - Yeah, she was.
She also worked at the Fudgery, in the mall here.
Dick Clark is an American icon,
the man who brought rock'n'roll into our homes every week
on American Bandstand.
Every part of your life, you can link up
to a part of music, usually. So, as Dick says,
"It's the soundtrack of our lives."
Music's the soundtrack of our lives.
His restaurant and the Fudgery, here in Auburn Hills,
applied for special tax breaks because they were using
welfare people as employees.
Even though Tamarla worked up to 70 hours a week
at these two jobs
in the mall, she did not earn enough to pay her rent.
And one week before the shooting,
was told by her landlord
that he was evicting her.
With nowhere to go and not wanting to take
her two children out of school, Tamarla asked her brother
if they could stay with him for a few weeks.
It was there that Tamarla's son
found a small 32-calibre gun and took it to school.
Tamarla did not see him take the gun to school,
because she was on a state bus to go serve drinks
and make fudge for rich people.
"Bandstand"
I decided to fly out to California
to ask Dick Clark what he thought about a system
that forces poor, single mothers to work
two low-wage jobs to survive.
I'm doing a documentary on these school shootings
and, you know, guns and all that.
And in my hometown of Flint Michigan, which you know,
this little six-year-old shot a six-year-old--
Get in the car, Dave! Watch your arm, watch your arm.
- Oop, sorry, sorry. - I'm sorry, we're really late.
Anyways, but the mother of the kid who did the shooting
works at Dick Clark's All-American Grill...
- Forget it. - ...in Oakland County...
- Close the door. - A Welfare-to-work program--
- Close the door. - These people are forced...
- Dick, no... - Bye-bye. Come on, move over!
I want you to help me convince the governor of Michigan...
It's a Welfare-to-work pro... These women are forced to work!
They've got kids at home. Dick!
Ah, jeez!
In George Bush's America,
the poor were not a priority.
And after September 11th, 2001,
correcting America's social problems
took a back seat to fear,
panic and a new set of priorities.
One way to express our unity
is for Congress to set the military budget,
the defence of the United States,
as the number-one priority and fully fund my request!
We've been selling a lot of chemical suits,
with the gloves and the hoods.
And we've been selling a lot of gas masks.
I'm trying to get one for myself and my puppy.
Denis Marks and his wife
have been stocking up supplies.
Weapons, ammunition...
Wal-Mart says after September 11th,
gun sales surged 70%,
ammunition up 140%.
In Dallas, they're already taking potshots
at Osama bin Laden.
In the months following the 9/11 attacks,
we, Americans, were gripped in a state of fear.
None of us knew if we too would die
at the hands of the evildoers,
or who might be sitting
next to some crazy guy trying to light his shoes on fire.
The threat seemed very real.
Sounds a little paranoid but I'm not gonna take the chance.
Just trying to protect myself and my family.
Our growing fears were turned
into a handsome profit for many.
Mike Blake has seen
a 30% increase in sales at ADT
over the last month.
Most of the people he talks to are still a little uneasy
over the September 11th terrorist attacks.
How are we afraid of all these things, it's because
a lot of people are making a lot of money off of it
and a lot of careers off of it.
And so, there's vested interests,
a lot of activity to keep us afraid.
And what better way to fight box-cutter-wielding terrorists
than to order a record number of fighter jets
from Lockheed?
Yes, everyone felt safer, especially with the army
doing garbage detail on Park Avenue.
And the greatest benefit of all of a terrorized public
is that the corporate
and political leaders can get away with just about anything.
I've never seen a better example
of cash-and-carry government
than this Bush administration and Enron.
There were a lot of things that I didn't know
after the World Trade Center attack,
but one thing was clear: whether it was before or after
September 11th, a public that's this out of control with fear
should not have a lot of guns or ammo laying around.
Well, I was shot with a Tech-9.
Nine millimetre?
Yeah. Yeah, I was, uh...
I guess it was supposed to be semi-automatic,
but it kind of seemed like fully automatic to me,
- from what I remember. - This is Richard Costaldo.
And this is Mark Taylor. Both of these boys were shot
the day of the Columbine massacre.
Richard is paralyzed for life and in a wheelchair.
And Mark is barely standing after numerous operations.
The kids at Columbine had to pay a penalty.
We paid a penalty that day... for this nation.
The way we look at it.
Mark and Richard were disabled and suffering
from the 17-cent K-Mart bullets still embedded in their bodies.
As they showed me the various entry points for the bullets,
I thought of one way we could reduce
the number of guns and bullets laying around. I asked the boys
if they'd like to go to K-Mart to return the merchandise.
- Ready? - You... you go.
K-Mart Headquarters Troy, Michigan
Hi.
Excuse me, will you turn the camera off, please?
- We're here to see Mr. Conaway. - You have to turn the camera off
- while you're in the building. - Oh, okay, all right.
Okay, turn it off now.
- Hey, Michael. - Hi, how are you?
I'm Mary Lorenz. I'm director of Media Relations for K-Mart.
- Oh, good. All right, good. - How can I help you today?
Well, I'm here today... This is Richard Costaldo.
- Richard, nice to meet you. - And this is Mark Taylor.
- Mark. - And they're students
from Columbine High School. They were shot at Columbine,
in the massacre, with bullets from K-Mart.
You came a long way. All the way from Colorado.
Yeah, I just... I was thinking that...
since you stopped selling the handguns and all,
it'd kind of make sense to stop selling the bullets too.
Our request is that you get rid of nine-millimetre bullets
and that you don't sell them in the store completely.
We do carry... You probably are aware of K- Mart -
hopefully, you're shoppers at our stores -
that we do only carry, you know, sporting firearms
and the accessories that go with the hunting sport.
And we'll certainly take your message to our chairman and CEO,
Chuck Conaway. He's not here today.
- He's not here today? - No. He's not here, actually,
- this whole week. - Not at all during the week?
Do you have a limit on the number of bullets, ammunition,
- that people can purchase? - You know, I can't answer
these questions for you. I'm not the merchandiser
who places those products in our stores.
Can we speak to that person?
But I can get answers to those questions for you.
If you leave your card, I could get those answers for you.
We don't want to leave a card.
The reason why we can't take a card
and come back is because Mark here,
he's got a K-Mart bullet just an inch away... right?
- Yeah. - From your aorta.
- In between my aorta and spine. - Between your aorta and spine.
I'm glad to see that you're still able to stand.
And I told him that somebody here would listen,
somebody here would... would...
would take the request seriously. Not just a PR person,
but somebody who has some authority and can answer
some of the questions that they want answered.
K-Mart does care about this,
but I can't go any further right now.
So until I make a call, um,
I'm gonna go back to the office
and see if there's anyone in merchandising...
Mary went back upstairs. And two hours later,
she brought down this guy whose job it is to buy the bullets
for K-Mart.
- Good. Stay out of trouble. - Yes.
We're not the ones in trouble, guys.
Mark thought he'd show him his bullet wounds.
- Those are his bullet holes. - Hm.
From your bullets.
That's where the K-Mart bullets went in.
Well, take care.
Is anybody else gonna come down?
Is anybody else gonna come down? Is that it?
- I'll check. - Okay, thank you.
We waited around a couple more hours
but no one else came down.
As we left the building, Mark came up with an idea.
He suggested that we go
to the nearest K-Mart and buy out all their bullets.
Just take as many of those as you can.
Yeah, you can come around here and look.
What else do we have over here?
You got 357. Sure, I'll take 'em all, take everything you got.
- So you're 17? You're what? - Sixteen.
Wait.
Oh, shit!
Oh, my God...
Mark pretty much cleaned them out of their ammunition.
And the next day, we decided to go back to K-Mart headquarters
with all the bullets. This time,
we brought the press.
Our local first coverage of south-eastern Michigan
continues now with all-new stories.
Coming up here on our six-o'clock report,
a warning to everyone this summer to watch out for snakes.
You'll hear from a mom who was bitten by a rattlesnake.
And also, students who survived the Columbine massacre
are in town. They are very angry with K-Mart.
We're here to see Chuck Conaway, the chairman of K- Mart.
How you doing, sir? It's always a pleasure.
Okay, uh...
They would like to speak to Mr. Conaway.
Here's the nine-millimetres.
These are the bullets that are in both Richard
and in Mark's body right now.
Move your group outside.
I'll have somebody here in five minutes.
Do me a favour, don't block the door.
Just off to the side, if you would.
Will go outside and somebody will come out.
My name's Laurie McTavish.
I'm the Vice-president of Communications for K-Mart.
I'm happy to deliver a statement on behalf of the company.
What happened in Columbine, Colorado, was truly tragic
and touched every American.
We're sorry for the...
disadvantage to this young man.
K-Mart is phasing out the sale of handgun ammunition.
The business plan calls for this to be complete
in the continental U.S. within the next 90 days.
Wow! Wow!
K-Mart representatives met with Mr. Moore
and the students from Columbine, Colorado, yesterday,
and listened to their concerns about the product
carried in K-Mart stores.
The company committed, at the end of that meeting,
that K-Mart would have an answer for them within a week's time.
Well, the first thing we want to do is thank you
for committing to no longer selling handgun ammunition
in your stores. And within 90 days--
The process will be phased out within 90 days.
And after 90 days, there will be no more selling
of ammunition that can go into handguns or assault weapons.
Firearm ammunition, will be... We will not sell it,
after 90 days, in our stores.
- We greatly appreciate that. - Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. That's very brave.
Thank you. Wow!
That blows my mind. That's more than what we asked for.
- It's remarkable. - Yeah. Well, like I told you--
- I didn't think-- - Did you think?
- No! - We're like, uh...
We're just getting ready to... We're going to the airport.
The kids from Columbine had scored an overwhelming victory
against K-Mart and it inspired me
to do something that I knew I had to do.
All I needed... was a star map.
- Hello? - Mr. Heston?
- Yeah. - This is Michael Moore.
- Yes. - The film- maker?
- Yes, of course. - Yes. How you doing?
Fine, thank you.
Listen, I was wondering if maybe I could talk to you.
We're making a documentary about the whole gun issue.
And I'm a member of the NRA.
I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about--
Tell you what, let me look at my calendar.
I may be able to give you some time tomorrow.
- I have some people here now. - Okay, well, how can I--
- Pardon me? - Hold the phone.
- Okay, thank you. - Okay.
I can give you a little time tomorrow morning.
- I think that's Thursday. - Yes.
- Let's say 8:30. - Eight-thirty in the morning?
- Yeah. Okay? - Okay. And just come here?
- Yes. - Okay, good.
Hello?
Hi. It's Michael Moore here to see Charlton Heston.
Okay.
Hi. Good morning.
- How are you? - Fine.
Thank you very much for agreeing to see me.
He took me out to his pool-and-tennis house
so we could have a chat.
I told him that I was a lifetime member of the NRA
and showed him my membership card.
Good for you. Well done.
I assume you have guns in the house here?
Indeed I do. Bad guys take notice!
So you have them for protection?
- Yeah. Sure. - Have you ever been
- a victim of crime? - No. No.
- Never been assaulted or...? - No.
No violence toward you, but you have guns in the house.
- Loaded. - They're loaded?
Well, if you really needed a weapon for self-defence,
- you need it loaded. - Okay, but why...
why do you need it for self- defence? Because--
- I don't. - Yeah, you've never been
a victim of crime, you haven't been assaulted.
- No, that's true. - You haven't been, you know...
Why would you... So why not... Why don't you unload the gun?
Because the second amendment gives me the right
- to have it loaded. - I agree.
I totally agree with that. I'm just saying... I mean,
the second amendment gives me--
Let's say it's a comfort factor.
It gives you comfort to know that there's a loaded gun.
Yeah.
Comfort meaning that it allows you to relax and feel safe?
- Not worry about it. - Not worry, not be afraid.
And I'm not really, but, uh...
I'm exercising one of the rights passed on down to me
from those wise, old, dead white guys that invented this country.
If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
But you could still exercise the right,
just by having a gun unloaded and locked away somewhere.
I choose to have it.
What sort of strikes me as interesting is that,
in other countries, where they don't have the murder rate,
the gun-murder rate that we have, that, uh...
many people say,
"Well, that's because they don't have guns around.
It's hard to get a gun in Britain or Germany or whatever."
But we went to Canada and there's seven million guns
- in 10-million homes. - There won't be very long.
- But hear me out, though. - Okay.
Canada is a nation of hunters,
millions of guns,
and yet, they had just a few murders last year.
That's it. A country of 30-million people.
Now, why - here's my question - why is it that...
that they've got all these guns laying around,
yet they don't kill each other
at the level that we kill each other?
I think American history is...
uh... has a lot of blood
- on its hands. - And Germany history doesn't?
- No. - And British history?
- I don't think as much. - Oh, are you...
Germans don't have as much, blood on their hands?
- Uh, they do, yes. - The Brits, they ruled the world
for 300 years at the barrel of a gun.
They're all violent people. They have bad guys, they have crime,
they have lots of guns--
Well, it's an interesting point, which can be explored
and you're good to explore it at great lengths,
but I think that's about all I have to say on it.
You don't have any opinion, though, as to why that is,
that we are the unique country, the only country,
that does this, that kills each other on this level, with guns?
Well, we have, probably, more mixed ethnicity
than other countries, some other countries.
You think it's an ethnic thing?
No, I don't. It's...
I wouldn't go so far as to say that.
We had enough problems with civil rights in the beginning.
It's... But, uh, I have no answer for that.
What do you mean, you think it's a mixed ethnicity?
I don't understand.
- You said, "How is it that..." - That we're unique.
"So many Americans kill each other?"
I don't know that that's true, but, uh...
Well, no, you know that.
We know we have the highest murder rate with guns.
It's way higher than any other country.
The only answer I can give you is the one I already gave you.
- Which is? - Which is that we have, uh...
- Historically-- - ...a history of violence.
Perhaps more than most countries. Not more than Russia,
- not more than Japan or China-- - Not more than Germany.
Not more than Germany, but certainly more than Canada.
I come from Flint, Michigan, and last year,
a little six-year-old boy took a gun into a classroom
and shot and killed a six-year-old girl. And, uh...
it was really a tragic thing--
- This was a kid, though. - A six-year-old, yeah.
Did you hear about this?
A six-year-old shooting a six-year-old?
- Yeah. - Well, here's my question.
After that happened,
you came to Flint and held a big rally.
Mm-hm.
And, you know, I just--
So did the vice-president.
Yeah, but did you feel it was being at all insensitive
to the fact that this community had just gone through--
Actually, I wasn't aware of that at the time we came.
We came and did an early-morning, uh... rally,
then went on to wherever we were going.
You didn't know at the time, that this killing had happened?
- No. - Had you known, would you have--
Would I have cancelled the... uh...
- Yeah. - I don't...
Hard to say.
It wasn't like it was already planned.
I mean, the choice to come there was made
after this horrible killing took place.
Yeah. Mm-hm.
You know, had you know that, would you have come?
I don't know. I have no idea.
- Maybe not. Maybe not. - Okay. Thank you.
You think you'd like to just maybe apologize to the people
in Flint for coming and doing that at that time, or...?
You want me to apologize...
me, apologize to the people in Flint?
Or the people in Columbine
for coming after their horrible tragedy.
Why do you go to the places after they have
these horrible tragedies? I'm a member of your group here--
Well, I'm afraid we don't agree on... on that.
You think it's okay to just come and show up
- at these events. - No.
You don't think it's okay?
Mr. Heston, just one more thing.
This is who she is -
or was. This is her.
Mr. Heston, please don't leave.
Mr. Heston, please, take a look at her.
This is the girl.
I left the Heston estate atop Beverly Hills
and walked back into the real world,
an America living and breathing in fear...
In your mind, you imagine somebody
who might break into your house, to harm you or your family.
What does that person look like?
You. Her. Him. The camera guy, anybody.
Could be a gun in the camera, I don't know.
Where gun sales were now at an all-time high...
Can shoot as fast as Wesson semi-automatic.
And where, in the end,
it all comes back to bowling
for Columbine.
Three bowling-alley employees shot to death Sunday night
at the AMF Broadway Lanes.
There's nothing I really know. I really don't know anything.
- Just that three people died. - Right.
In Littleton, in a bowling alley.
I'm sorry.
Yes, it was a glorious time to be an American.