Media personality, writer and entrepreneur Baratunde Thurston investigates America’s arrest capital, Gretna, Louisiana, on the Nov. 21 edition of National Geographic’s “Explorer.”
In June, Fusion deemed Gretna the nation’s arrest capital primarily because of the disproportionate number of arrests of Black residents for nonviolent offenses.
Figures show that Black people make up only one-third of the city’s population but are arrested nearly two-thirds of the time. So that rounds out to about eight out of nine Black residents being arrested for nonviolent offenses.
According to Thurston’s report, the city racks up revenue from court fines and fees at 16 times the national median.
Moreover, Fusion reported that the city’s police department made 6,566 adult arrests out of a total population of 18,000 residents in 2013. Only 49 people were arrested for violent offenses that same year.
Additionally, Gretna’s arrest rate is 34 percent, which is higher than Houston (5 percent), Atlanta (8 percent) and Baton Rouge (9 percent) combined.
In this latest episode, Thurston joins director Michael Moore and former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer and current actor Randy Sutton as they dissect the root causes for this phenomenon.
“Explorer” airs Monday at 10 p.m.
