
Probable Cause: Newark
I was drawn to the City of Newark because it felt like alien land on the other side of the river of my home in New York City. It was a mystery, a mystery close by.
I wanted to explore how this space of perceived lawlessness was managed by its police force. What was their relationship with a city on the ebb? How did they handle its crime and discontent? I wanted to use them as guides into the sites and misdeeds of this unfamiliar place that I would not have access to otherwise.
The City scares me. It has always been a raging monster that has threatened to eat me up. I was scared of being as saulted and also scared of the violence it brought out in me. In many ways, the City stands for my father and my relationship with him, an authority figure that I had to obey but was also constantly subverting. Perhaps this is why I choose the police as my guides to Newark: they too were authority figures that elicited respect and disapproval simultaneously.
How do these men and women keep the peace? Can it work? In my experience with them, they both succeed and fail. This sounds obvious, but of course it could be more one than the other.




































































