'That was crazy to me' black film-maker captures own pepper-spraying by

The wrenching agony caused by excessive use of force by riot police on media people and protesters has been captured by an African American film-maker who was temporarily blinded after he was pepper-sprayed in the face. Christopher Frierson, 37, managed to keep his video camera rolling after he was sprayed by a riot police officer in Brooklyn from just feet away. A cordon of police suddenly charged at him after a woman was captured on film throwing a water bottle at them, and Frierson was pepper-sprayed even though he was clearly displaying a press badge.“That was crazy to me,” Frierson told the Guardian. “I had never seen anything like that before, and I’ve been to a lot of protests. I’d assumed they wouldn’t do anything to me because I was press and I had a camera in my arms, but I found out that I was wrong.”The footage shows the toxic spray hitting the camera lens; simultaneously you hear Frierson utter visceral groans of pain as he stumbles and falls to the ground. Within moments he was dragged by protesters to the curbside. One of the extraordinary aspects of his footage is that it not only captures the enduring pain of being assaulted by police – Frierson is unable to see or move for more than 10 minutes – but it also depicts the swift aid that was extended to him by protesters acting as volunteer paramedics.“I could not see a single thing. I had no idea where I was or what was going on, I was so disoriented and confused,” Frierson said.“Suddenly, people jumped in to give me assistance. That’s something I’ve never seen before in any protest. In the moment, it made me feel safe, I was being taken care of.“From the footage, you can see they were all white people, and that means a lot to me. From the perspective of a black man who has just been maced, here were white people, in a society where white people have all the power, wanting to help me.”Frierson is a rising star of the documentary film world. His movie, Don’t Try to Understand: A Year in the Life of Earl “DMX” Simmons, which follows the rapper DMX after his release from federal prison, was set to open the Tribeca film festival before the pandemic intervened. Now he is bringing his acute documentarian eye to the George Floyd protests. Another exceptional aspect of his footage, shown here by the Guardian for the first time, is that having recovered from the trauma of being pepper-sprayed, Frierson decided to go back to the same spot on Flatbush Avenue and talk to police officers about what they were doing.“I have no animosity towards the cops who sprayed me,” he explained. “I know there’s a systemic problem in policing in the United States and that these guys are workers – you sign up for the police force, maybe thinking you are going to help your community, and you find the good ol’ boys prevent you from doing the good work you intended to do.”A couple of nights after he was pepper-sprayed he spotted a group of police officers in the exact same spot and started talking to them. “We