TITLE NARRATIVE

"In the summer of 2016 I received an official transcript of a police interrogation from a source who had a relationship with the case in question. Following a car theft, then Sgt. Bob Kroll, who is white, and at the time stationed at Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct interrogated Otis, a Black 14 year old. The year was 1994, the epicenter of Clinton’s “tough on crime” rhetoric and the transcript reads like the playbook for the school-to-prison pipeline.

A little over twenty years on, at the time I received the document, Kroll was the head of Minneapolis’ police union, and an outspoken and problematic presence in the city's criminal and social justice dialogue. With the help of comic artist and Uncivilized Books publisher, Tom Kaczynski, I gathered eighteen comics illustrators for a “book sprint.” In one day, around Beyond Repair’s publication space, Transmission, each illustrator took a few pages from the transcript. Without altering the transcript text, in short order, a complete comic was produced illustrating the belittling, lopsided and violent power dynamic between this middle aged man and child.

Three hundred issues were printed to be given away for free, but first, copies were hand delivered to the mayor, police chief, and complete city council. Not long after distribution began, Kroll found out about the comic, came to the shop, and without saying a word grabbed a handful of copies and left."

COMMENTARY

An excerpt from Risa Puleo's interview with Sam Gould in Hyperallergic about the making of Sgt. Kroll Goes to the Office. Visit Hyperallergic for the piece in its entirety.

Kroll: First, you have the right to remain silent.

Otis: What does that mean?

Kroll: Why don’t you take your hands away from your mouth for me and sit up there and talk like a man.

Otis: Okay?

Kroll: You have the right to remain silent. Do you know what that means?

Otis: No.

Kroll: Do you know what … what … what word there? There’s “you” “have” “the” “right” “to” “remain” “silent.” Is there one word you don’t understand in those seven?

Otis: What? I don’t know?

Kroll: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT … okay, what grade are you in?

The first 10 of the 32-page illustrated transcript of Minneapolis Police Department Sergeant Bob Kroll’s interrogation of Otis, a 14-year-old black child, continue in a manner that is simultaneously berating and confounding. Otis was in the eighth grade when he was arrested in 1996 for riding in a stolen car in Minneapolis. He maintained his innocence despite Kroll’s repeated attempts to extract a confession from him using the Reid technique, an archaic set of interrogation methods contested by ACLU and American Bar Association for producing false confessions, especially in children. Currently, Bob Kroll (now a Lieutenant) is the controversial union president of the Minneapolis Police Federation, who has admonished the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of Philando Castile’s fatal shooting by a police officer of St. Anthony, Minnesota, in June of 2016 and Jamar Clark’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis PD officer in November of 2015.

In August the complete transcript of Otis’s interrogation was anonymously delivered to Beyond Repair, a bookstore and independent publishing house run by the artist Sam Gould(...)

DOCUMENTS

In August of 2016 Gould and Tom Kaczynski brought together eighteen comics illustrators to Beyond Repair's publication site, Transmission, in S. MPLS's Midtown Global Market. Over the course of an afternoon each artist took a few pages of the transcript and was asked to illustrate those pages using the text of the transcript as source material, without altering any of the language.

By the end of the of the day the entirety of the transcript had been drawn out, ready to be scanned. Soon after this task was completed the shop went to work on printing a run of three hundred copies of what came to be titled Sgt. Kroll Goes to the Office.

The completed run of 300 copies of Sgt. Kroll Goes to the Office was ready for distribution. But before a public announcement was made select copies were sent to the entity of the Minneapolis City Council, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the Governor with a letter describing the context and process of creating the comic, the interrogation transcript that spawned it, and the projects intended desires.

The project was included in the exhibition Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System, curated by Risa Puleo the exhibition debuted at the Contemporary Art Museum - Houston followed by a national tour. The comic was reproduced for the exhibitions catalog. A PDF of that reproduction can be viewed and downloaded here.

COLOPHON

Editor: Sam Gould

Illustrators: Tom Kaczynski, Eric Johnson, Clara Jetsmark, Peter Wartman, Lupi McGinty, Kurt Austin, David Bayless, Derek Maxwell, Fiona Avocado, Coryn Lanasa, Christian Moser, Jenny Schmid, Lilli Richards, Will Dinski, Ryan Dow, Brett Von Schlosser, Jordan Shiveley, Zak Sally

Timeframe: August 2016 - November 2016