Directed by Deirdre Fishel
Featuring Alice White, Janee Harteau and Melissa Chiodo
Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes

by Audrey Callerstrom

On July 15, 2017, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old white woman, called 9-1-1 to report an assault happening in the alley near her house. When the police arrived, she approached the driver’s side of the squad car, and the officer, startled, shot her in the chest and killed her. The police chief, a woman named Janée Harteau, was on vacation when it happened. She did not immediately return, nor did she address the issue, for several days. Less than a week later, the mayor asked Harteau to resign. She did.

If you don’t live in Minnesota, these names may not be familiar to you. But you don’t need to live in Minnesota or remember these headlines to find Dierdre Fishel’s Women in Blue engaging. Fishel provides just enough context for the events in the film. It opens with photos of police officers of years past: all male, all white. Janée Harteau may have exercised poor judgment, but she was also Minneapolis’s first female police chief, and with her departure came a decrease in engagement among women in the department.

The film starts in mid-2017, when the community’s opinion of the police was already poor. In 2015, Jamar Clark, an unarmed 24-year-old man, was shot and killed by police. In 2016, Philando Castile was pulled over during a routine traffic stop and shot and killed when he reached for his driver’s license. In 2018, 31-year-old Thurman Blevins was chased by police and shot after pleading, “please don’t shoot me. Leave me alone.” All of these men were black. The shootings were followed by public outrage, and in the case of Clark, an 18-day occupation outside the precinct. Alice White, one of the film’s subjects, doesn’t tell people she is a cop because of the negative connotations. “I say I work for the city,” she says. The film also follows Melissa Chiodo, who works for internal affairs, and rookie officer Erin Grabosky. The film skilfully transitions between each of these womens’ stories. On a routine night in Downtown Minneapolis, Grabosky and her partner approach a woman, who screams at them, “You are f__ing criminals. You guys are murderers.” White and Chiodo have the resilience that comes with knowing how to navigate a male-dominated profession. Contrast this with Grabosky, who, in her third year, is learning the politics of the job.

We see how involved White is in her community. She has the same friendly demeanor when she meets with high school students as she does when she meets with community advocates, including an older white woman who explains to White, a woman of color, “If I was a black woman, this would have turned out differently.” White listens patiently. We see Chiodo sit down with Chief Medaria Arradondo, who replaced Harteau, to discuss her proposals for recruiting and retaining female officers. We see White lock up her gun at the end of the day. We see Grabosky responding to a call where a young woman has threatened to commit suicide. Fishel could have interviewed experts, other men in the department, or even members of the community, but she doesn’t. Doing so, she lets the women control their narrative. Each testimonial feels self-directed.

Additionally, the film is shot exceptionally well. It never feels procedural or labored. It makes good use of its scant 83-minute running time. Fishel is not trying to convince you of anything with Women in Blue, she’s simply pulling a layer off a local news story to show you how it affected the real lives of women in law enforcement. My hope with Women in Blue is that this subject is explored at greater length. There is enough to unpack here to span multiple episodes, and it would make a compelling documentary series in Fishel’s capable hands.