Ramirez Jorge ought to have been secure. The Bakersfield father of five was helping the police track down a wanted criminal in 2013 by acting as an informant. However, this assignment ended tragically with Ramirez’s death in a gunfight. This is the case examined in the newest true crime series from ABC and Hulu, Killing County, which explores the police’s involvement in this tragic case as well as the department’s history of needless violence.
Killing County, a docuseries created by a news network and directed by Michaela Dowd, was produced by Colin Kaepernick. There aren’t many needless interviews or narrative embellishments. But commitment to the truth makes a strong message in a series that examines law enforcement in a direct, critical manner.
Jorge Ramirez wasn’t exactly a good neighbor. Due to his drug addiction and history of property theft, Ramirez had a criminal background even if he wasn’t a particularly violent criminal. The Bakersfield, California, police department made use of this history to its advantage. If Ramirez served as a “citizen informant,” or CI, authorities promised to postpone the preliminary hearing in a narcotics case that was now pending against him.
When it came to Justin Harger, it wasn’t the situation. Harger was a wanted criminal on parole with an active arrest warrant stemming from a deadly shooting that had happened weeks before. He was regarded as armed and potentially harmful. Additionally, Ramirez was entrusted with taking him to the police.
Anyone would have been at danger in this situation, but Ramirez was particularly vulnerable to failure. He had limited experience working as a covert agent and understood nothing about what information should be reported to the police. The police themselves came next. Later it was discovered that several of the cops were unaware that Ramirez was employed by them. Others said they had no idea how their chosen CI appeared. Ramirez was assigned one of the riskiest occupations a regular person can have, yet he had no safety net.
Police failed to uphold their half of the arrangement, but Ramirez did. He drove Harger to the designated parking area on September 15, 2013. In the subsequent gunfire, Ramirez and Harger both died away.
The deceased’s sister Nicole Ramirez painstakingly dug through her brother’s phone and discovered evidence of his cooperation with the police, which led to the discovery of the narrative we are now aware of. Killing County alternates between showcasing her accomplishments and presenting a more comprehensive view of Bakersfield’s chronic police failure.
The documentary series also looks at the deaths of James De La Rosa, James Alderman, and David Sal Silva in order to support this claim. Every instance is as unsettling as Ramirez’s. Silva passed away in May 2013 after being severely assaulted by numerous police officers and mauled by a police dog. Officers would subsequently acknowledge that he presented no genuine danger, and his family reached a settlement with the county for $3.4 million. De La Rosa was shot by four cops in 2014 even though he wasn’t carrying a weapon at the time. It was subsequently discovered that one of the officers had tampered with his body, including “ticking” the corpse. Later, De La Rosa passed away at Kern Medical Center, and his passing sparked demonstrations. Alderman was fatally shot six times in 2015 after being caught robbing a Subway.
The documentary series Killing County is not for the faint of heart. It takes an uncompromising look at the county where 10 unarmed individuals were shot by police in the 2010s, six of whom died, over the course of three episodes. This documentary is just as horrifying as it sounds, yet it could be what we need right now.
»A Hulu Viewer’s Guide to ‘Killing County’ and the Case of Jorge Ramirez«