- [Lucky] The Michael Brown thing, that changed
how I looked at a lot of things.
Man that was a kid, that was a kid.
And then, like I watched these people destroy
their neighborhood.
I'd never actually witnessed anything like that.
Like me and my wife, we watched that
all the way up until about three or four o'clock
in the morning.
Everybody in America wants a safe community.
My wife was more, like, what are you gonna do about it?
I hear you talking about it but what are you gonna do?
Am I gonna sit on the sidelines?
I've never been a sideline person.
- [Narrator] The Black Lives Matter movement was born
in 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman
in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Since then, the country has been rocked
by videos of tragic shootings and protests reacting
to those videos cycling on the news and online.
There are many perspectives
on these emotionally charged events.
And the distance between different activist groups can
sometimes seem insurmountable.
This is a story about Shaun, aka Lucky, Corbett,
and his efforts to change the conversation
between police and his community
in Charlotte, North Carolina.
To make money, Shaun used to sell drugs.
- At that time, it was so much easier
than working at McDonald's.
You made a lot more money.
I had a baby at 17.
While everybody else was buying prom tickets,
I'm buying Pampers and formula.
So it was a job.
We were putting food on the table.
- [Narrator] After multiple trips to prison,
Shaun wanted to change.
- Now what I wanted to do, I didn't know.
But I knew it wasn't sitting in no cell for most of my life.
Ultimately, he decided to become a barber
and open up a barbershop.
- Barbershop, if I can sum it up in one word, it's family.
Your barbershop represents that neighborhood.
Anything that goes on in the community,
it comes though the barbershop.
Over the years, I've done so much bad
in the neighborhood, that I want to do a little bit of good.
- [Narrator] The shooting of Michael Brown made Shaun reflect
on his own son's ability to interact
with law enforcement.
- At that time, my son was 18.
That got my wheels to turning,
does he even know how to speak to an officer?
I had to ask myself, did I teach him right?
The answer was no, because I didn't know the right way.
So I said what can I do to change this?
- [Narrator] Shaun saw a problem.
A disconnect between his community
in Charlotte, and the police.
And it was complicated.
There were racial tensions,
poor educational system,
mistrust on both sides.
So he took a first step.
- Pretty much, I reached out to the police department,
and was like, we need to do this.
And so that's how we ended up
with the Cops and Barbers Initiative.
- [Narrator] So Shaun partners up
with this guy, Gary McFadden,
a homicide detective in Charlotte for 37 years,
and they start building the team.
- The Chief of Police has asked me to be a part
of the project that he thinks is going
to be beneficial to the city.
So I walk in, I'm in class, in uniform,
I look around the room, everyone's in class, in uniform,
and in walks this guy with this hat cocked sideways
and tattoos on his neck and sits right next to me.
He had been to prison.
He was a convicted felon.
This doesn't normally look like the guy we partner with.
- [Narrator] Captain Rob Dance has been an advocate
inside the police department
to build more productive relationships
between law enforcement and the community.
And now, he's in charge of training new police in Charlotte.
- I don't think that police can
effectively police a community
unless they understand who some of the people are
that they're gonna be policing.
I think that we've missed that step.
- When I first met Captain Dance, man,
I was like, he really cares.
And I told him, I said from this point on,
any community event that I ever do,
you better be a part of it.
And he agreed and we've been rocking ever since.
To ease racial tension in America, man,
you gotta go straight at it.
When I met Rob, one of the things that we discussed was
we don't take the opportunity to realize
that we are all human.
My biggest thing is creating opportunities
for children to see officers as people.
And so we created the tutoring program.
- [Rob] Every police recruit is going
to tutor young kids in the community
throughout their entire time here at the police academy.
- He put me in handcuffs, but I didn't get arrested.
- [Gary] Well do you think you were treated right?
- No, sir.
- [Garry] Here's what I'm gonna tell you.
Are there dirty cops?
Yes.
How do we know there are dirty cops?
We need people to tell us.
You should file a complaint.
- So let me load this up for you.
You're the police, you're the police.
- [Lucky] Their job is really on the difficult side.
Sometimes they're put in positions
to make a split-second decision.
- Are you gonna shoot him?
- Unfortunately we don't really hear
about the split second decisions that went right.
It's our job to get in our communities
and dictate what's going on.
We can't put it all on them.
And so we have to kind of meet them halfway.
You have to realize your responsibility in your community.
- And I think that that is an absolute perfect example
of what this program is all about.
- All right, man, here.
Ya'll gonna get older,
and ya'll gonna be the big dogs in the community.
And if you ain't putting in no work,
it's never gonna change.
It's just gonna be worse.
Just remember that it's gonna be worse.
And then one day, ya'll gonna have kids,
and ya'll gonna want the community
that's better for your kids.
- [Narrator] Cops and Barbers do cadet training,
tutoring, transparency programs, and mentorship,
all in a effort to help people
in their community better understand each other.
But for Shaun and Captain Dance,
it's more personal than that.
- Here we go, load your weapon.
Early on, we were introducing the program.
And there was a young student.
I was bumping people's elbows saying who is this kid?
Everything that he said he meant.
He was passionate.
And I found out that night
that it was Shaun's son,
Khaliah.
Khaliah is now a cadet here in the police department.
And although I can't guarantee that he will be hired,
I can't imagine that we wouldn't bring
someone like that onto the force.
- Seeing my dad going to jail and things
of that nature, it changed him as a man,
and you see where he's at now.
And that's just kinda tell everybody
that there's no bigger way to make a change
than to actually be the change.
- [Narrator] Shaun and Captain Dance are both working
to see these challenges from different vantage point.
They know that Cops and Barbers isn't gonna solve
this complex problem overnight,
but taking this approach has been really helpful.
- One of the key things that I've learned
since I've been doing Cops and Barbers is just,
like, man, you need more Rob Dances.
People that really care.
But as a community, we have to be more willing
and more receptive to these guys.
And we have to work together, that's the key.
- You treat people differently when you know them.
And I think that that's the key here.
For police to learn and understand people in the community.
- [Lucky] We can't keep it separate
and expect things to change.
At the end of the day, the way that I see it, it's up to us.