Review: 'Sugar Town'

By just about measure, race relations in America have improved immensely in the years since Jim Crow laws dominated the South. Yes, we still have far to go, but in 2018 it is easy to forget just how hard it was to be a black person in a Southern state fifty years ago.

And yet for all of the improvements and enlightenment, there are still places in America where things haven't changed all that much since the days of the Civil Rights marches of the 1960s. Places like New Iberia, Louisiana, a town where the railroad track does mark the dividing line between black and white residents. North of the railroad line you'll find all-white neighborhoods filled with gated communities and large houses built by the owners of the sugar fields that still provide a primary source of income for many in the area. South of the area is nearly 100 percent black and filled with rundown neighborhoods that still include some of the shacks used by slaves and sharecroppers a hundred plus years ago. It's a stark contrast of a town and in recent years the divide between the mostly white sheriff's department and the blacks residents of New Iberia has been especially large.

Things came to a boil following the March 2, 2014 shooting death of 22-year-old Victor White III. He was fatally shot in the back of a police car while being taken to the station and that story is the center of the two-hour Investigation Discovery special "Sugar Town." It's a brutal and tragic story that only gets more unbelievable as the case slowly comes to the attention of the public.

It wasn't just that Victor White III was the popular son of a local preacher who was working to try and bridge the gap between the two races. He was also shot in the back seat of a police car, with his hands handcuffed behind him. According to the police report, despite having been thoroughly searched twice before being arrested, White somehow had a pistol hidden on his body. The left-handed man then inexplicably was able to shoot himself on the right front side of his body, despite having his hands handcuffed behind him. His body also showed evidence he had been beaten, with a large mark on his cheek that could have come from the butt of a rifle.

The incident happened in the one section of the police parking lot that wasn't covered by cameras and the camera in the interior of the police car was turned off. And yet, the official coroner's report came back with the cause of death as a suicide.

White's death ultimately led to an investigation of Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal, which included a federal investigation of the local jail where a number of prisoners had died under mysterious circumstances. And I won't give away all the twists that come in the final 30 minutes of the special, but you're likely to walk away from "Sugar Town" filled with equal parts of rage and sadness.

In an ideal world, justice would come for everyone and one of the primary lessons of "Sugar Town" is that we still live in a very imperfect country. This is a powerful and tragic story about corruption and racial injustice and it's a story that deserves as big an audience as possible. This is a documentary you will carry with you for a very long time.