Recent docs on Indigenous peoples in the United States emphasize the troubled, tragic legacy between Native Americans and the US government, like “Lakota Nation Vs. United States.” Others, like Showtime‘s “Murder In Big Horn,” chart ongoing issues like the murdered and missing indigenous women crisis and the media and government’s relative neglect to take it seriously.
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But “Navajo Police: Class 57” takes a different approach. Instead of focusing on the tragic history of Indigenous peoples, or the contemporary crises that still afflict them, HBO‘s new three-part series focuses on the police force of the largest Indian reservation in the US and the challenges they face as law officers and survivors of a sovereign nation.
Here’s an official synopsis of “Navajo Police: Class 57,” courtesy of HBO:
Set against the sweeping backdrop of the Navajo Nation, NAVAJO POLICE: CLASS 57 is a three-part documentary series following a group of recruits over the course of one year as they fight their way through the Navajo Police Training Academy and out into the field, where they must contend with rising crime and centuries of neglect to hold their community together. For this cadre, known as Class 57, the pressure is fierce, and the stakes are high as the survival of their sovereign nation depends in part on the success of this academy.
The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian reservation in the United States, with a landmass the size of West Virginia and a population of over 190,000 people. Yet, the Navajo Police Department (NPD) has just 180 police officers. With pressure on the department to increase numbers, the NPD has become the only tribal law enforcement agency in the country with its own Police Academy. All of the recruits are Navajo and drawn from the community, but with an attrition rate of over 50%, the training officers have their work cut out for them. NAVAJO POLICE: CLASS 57 follows the officers and recruits through the rigorous training, the physical challenges, and the self-doubt, delving into their backstories to reveal an overview of life on the reservation and the motivations that drew them to the force.
While the turbulent stories of Class 57 unfold in real time, the series provides an ever-widening portrait of the Navajo Nation at large. The Nation’s deep sense of kinship grounds efforts to address a range of social issues police encounter on the job — such as alcoholism, drugs, violence, and domestic abuse- issues that many of the recruits have to deal with in their own extended families, leading to dramatic intersections of the personal and the professional, the past and the present. In this unique social and cultural context, the NPD stands as a microcosm of the Navajo Nation itself, revealing its history, uncertain future, and its resiliency.
Kahlil Hudson, Alex Jablonsky, and David Nordstrom share directing duties on “Navajo Police: Class 57.” Hudson, Jablonski, and Nordstrom also executive produce the series with Blackhorse Lowe, Myles Estey, Nicole Scott, Jonathan Silberberg, Davis Guggenheim, and Laurene Powell Jobs. Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, and Tina Nguyen also executive produce through HBO. “Navajo Police: Class 57” is a Concordia Studio production for HBO Documentary Films.
The first two episodes of “Navajo Police Class 57” premiere on HBO and Max tonight, with the third and final episode arriving tomorrow. Check out a trailer for the doc series as well as an exclusive clip from it below.
