CATCHING BULLETS – Review by Diane Carson
Catching Bullets surveys youth mentoring in St. Louis’ Walnut Park
An inspirational story of profound empathy, director Ben Scholle’s documentary Catching Bullets profiles Darren Seals, an ex-dope dealer who now leads a youth mentoring center from a previously condemned church in Walnut Park in north St. Louis. Darren’s uplifting outreach, captured in formal and informal moments, focuses on Preston, called Tink, among others. Offering an alternative lifestyle to pervasive violence, Darren listens to, identifies with, and supports young men, hoping to redirect their energy into positive activity.
A sobering introduction sets the scene. Four men push a coffin down a city street, one lamenting, “I’m tired of all this killing, man!” As this Anti-Violence March, St. Louis, October 2020 proceeds, the statistics quoted further reinforce the tragedies, for of the 207 killings in St. Louis for that year, 91% are Black, the overwhelming majority of them Black men. Voices affirm, “Those are some staggering statistics. We need to do something about the killing.” Catching Bullets is about a leader in that admirable effort, Darren Seals, a man who knows that “the only people that are going to fix the streets are the people in the streets.” Wanted for homicide in the ‘90s, in 2020 he became owner of the abandoned Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Walnut Park, one of a cluster of five St. Louis’ neighborhoods most affected by violence.
Knowing that in 2019, St. Louis, Missouri, had the highest U.S. per-capita murder rate with five shooting deaths on January 1, 2020, Seals put Herculean efforts into youth mentoring, vocational training, and a self-initiated conflict mediation program for Black teenagers. Eavesdropping on candid, often confrontational sessions illuminates the complexity of the challenge. A former gang member himself, Seals interacts with knowledge and insight, teaching life and work skills. After resolving Tink’s and Marcus’ antagonism in an intervention, he teaches them tuckpointing, dry wall measuring and stapling, working off scaffolding, circular saw safety, etc., always asking pointed questions about their attitudes and hopes, advising them, and offering guidance.
Through explicit examples of slave brutality and inhumane practices (chains, lashings, iron slave collars, and more) he helps educate about history. In small groups, teenagers and Seals describe their contemporary, traumatic experiences: a cousin killed over grass clippings, stray bullets hitting bystanders, the first time Seals was shot, an attempt on Tink’s brother, and the fact in 2020 that these young men have almost as great a chance of dying from a bullet as COVID (263 homicides vs. 363 COVID-19 deaths). Not receptive, several young men reject intervention as selling dope pays a lot of immediate cash that blinds some. Adding Cure Violence to his initiatives, Seals persists in his efforts, one step forward, one back as he fights relentlessly for Black youth.
A product of the early 2020 collaboration with the Sankofa Unity Center’s social media feeds, Catching Bullets contributes to the solution, intractable but not impossible with Seals and other good people involved and leading the way. Technically solid, with sound that supports but never distracts, this film provides an inspirational and realistic snapshot of this environment. This heartwarming and heartbreaking documentary offers a rare opportunity to gain insight into the reality of the street: those who fight for peace amidst formidable adversity. Catching Bullets is streaming on Amazon and Tubi plus Hoopla for those with library access.
