When I signed on to work on Patriot Hustler, I knew it was going to take me places. I knew that some of those places would be new to me, strange even. But I did not know that I’d be hanging out with gangsters in the hood, or that my life would be in danger at any point in the filmmaking process.
For some background, I’m a young, white female from the suburbs of Philly (the nice ones), did private school, the whole shebang, so when Eddie took me to Inglewood this past Friday and Saturday you might say that I was “new” to the ghetto. Everybody jokes about the “ghetto” part of their town or city, but this was real Blood and Crip territory and the only other white person there besides me was Eddie. With him around, I felt pretty safe, but I still locked the car every few seconds.
Honestly, though? In the daylight, it didn’t seem that bad. Sure, there was graffiti and Ed would point out certain notorious places, like the liquor store that became a landmark of the LA riots in the early 90s, but everybody seemed pretty relaxed albeit interested in what we were doing with a camera there. So I got comfortable pretty quick.
There we are on Crenshaw by a fascinatingly unique barber shop when a woman sees one of the signs Eddie’s putting up and calls him across the street. She’s standing in front of her store next to car with a couple young girls in the front who are laughing and waving at us. He tells me to swing over and park on the other side to meet him. Easy enough, I hop in my car and pull up and instinctively grab the camera to get everything on tape (the more the better, right?).
“NO! NO! NO!”
Suddenly the girls in the car are screaming and yelling and Eddie looks up.
“Jacqui, don’t film this, put the camera away. Now.”
Confused, I quickly put the camera in the car and raise my hands to the screaming girls. Only then do I notice a large black guy who had started coming out the back door of the car. When he saw my skinny white ass he sort of shrugged and got back in. Then they drove away. It wasn’t until we were back on the road that Eddie told me, “You have to be careful with the camera. Those guys pulled their guns out!”
“Over the camera?”
“All they see something shiny and black. Out here you shoot first before your ass gets shot.”
That scared me. And sort of stroked my ego a bit that these tough gangsters thought someone like me would be packing. But, really, fear was the dominating emotion.
“Don’t worry,” Eddie said, “nobody’s gonna shoot you when I’m with you.”
And you know what? Those words made me feel a whole lot better. Because I knew damn well it was true. Life is a rollercoaster when you work for Eddie Roche, the Patriot Hustler.
