acquainted

Mom records heartwarming video of police officer playing dolls with girls who 'were afraid of cops'

A police officer in South Hill, Va., became a local celebrity after a video of him playing with dolls on the sidewalk with a group of little girls went viral. The officer has now come to be known as a mentor to neighborhood kids, who think of him as a superhero.

“He’s awesome. That’s the only word you can really use to describe C.B.,” said area mom Iesha Roper-Boswell about Cpl. C.B. Fleming, a 15-year veteran of the South Hill Police Department, according to Richmond, Va., news station WTVR. 

Roper-Boswell said Fleming and the children first became acquainted when emergency crews responded to a gas leak at her apartment complex. Once the leak was declared not a threat, and Fleming realized everyone was safe, he started talking with the residents. “I was telling him that my daughter, my niece and some of the other children here were afraid of cops,” Iesha Roper-Boswell told WTVR. 

So when Fleming spotted the kids playing outside, he went over to them, got down on the ground and started playing too — first with a group of boys who were coloring, and then with the girls who were playing with dolls. Surprised by the sight of the 42-year-old officer making himself comfortable on his belly with his legs crossed like a kid, she grabbed her phone and started recording a video — which happened to take place on Valentine’s Day.

But the moment wasn’t just a one-shot deal for the officer. Fleming has been going above and beyond to be a mentor and friend to the kids in the community, not only encouraging them to consider him someone assigned to protect them but also engaging them in conversation about games, activities and their favorite cartoon characters (his is Moana). Fleming even has a secret talent— he can do a cartwheel almost as well as the local girls.

“It’s just amazing, the bond that he has with the children, especially around here,” said Roper-Boswell. “It’s very important to see the connection he has.”

In fact, Roper-Boswell said the children are so enamored of Fleming that they swarm him when they see him. She says a role model like that in the form of a police officer is just what they need. “We locally call him ‘the South Hill Batman,'” she told WTVR.

Fleming, a father of four biological children and two foster children, makes it a priority to represent the police force with integrity and generosity — and he said takes his vow to protect and serve very seriously. He tells the children to remember that he’s always around, not just for the “bad stuff” but for the “good stuff” too.

“When I got into this job, I knew there was something different, other than just writing tickets and being the bad person all the time,” he told WTVR. “I figured if I could be that bright spot in someone’s day, then that’s all that mattered.”

“The Town of South Hill is so lucky to have you,” one person commented on Roper-Boswell’s Facebook post. “I used to LIVE for his bright spirit to walk into McDonald’s and hang out for a while. Great guy!” wrote another community member.

But Fleming has been humble in the face of all the attention he’s received since the video went viral. “Y’all give me more credit than I deserve, but I do appreciate the love,” he replied to the well-wishers. “Plus who doesn’t like playing and coloring with kids?!? It’s probably my favorite thing to do. They were so kind to me, and I’m so thankful they allowed me to play with them today.”

Though he takes the praise in stride, Fleming does realize the gravity of his actions. “For me to be a catalyst for young people, regardless of race, color, creed, religion,” Fleming said. “I feel that I could be a positive change.”

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Andrés Jaque, David Adjaye, and others paint a bleak vision of tomorrow in London

Farshid Moussavi and Zineb Sedira, 2019, Borders / Inclusivity (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Simon Fujiwara and David Kohn, 2019, The Salvator Mundi Experience (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Kapwani Kiwanga (pictured) and Adjaye Associates, 2019, Sankofa Pavilion (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Rachel Armstrong and Cecile B Evans, 2019, 999 years, 13sqm (the future belongs to ghosts) (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Rachel Armstrong and Cecile B Evans, 2019, 999 years, 13sqm (the future belongs to ghosts) (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Rana Begum and Marina Tabassum Architects, 2019, Phoenix Will Rise (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)Simon Fujiwara and David Kohn, 2019, The Salvator Mundi Experience (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)APPARATA and Hardeep Pandhal, 2019, Thugz Mansion (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)APPARATA and Hardeep Pandhal, 2019, Thugz Mansion. Visitors are invited to sit on a concrete ledge and listen to Pandhal’s song about a failing society in front of a cut-out of a nuclear family. There is some Barbara Hepworth-esque tension between the concrete and a polished metal cylinder on which one ledge rests, but that’s it. (Jason Sayer / AN)

Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling, Eduardo Paolozzi, and then some: The Whitechapel Gallery’s This is Tomorrow show had an all-star cast when it was unveiled in 1956, not that the audience was necessarily acquainted with these fresh-faced artists and architects (yet). Bold, radical, and surefooted—as the name suggested—This is Tomorrow turned heads as visitors flocked to the then-genuinely edgy East End of London to see the show that was welcoming a new artistic movement, Pop Art, to Britain.

Is This Tomorrow? a show now at the same Whitechapel Gallery in the same, now banker-friendly part of London, recalls the exhibition of 63 years ago. Instead of being laced with new ideas fuelled by the optimism of a country finally free from food rationing, Is This Tomorrow? takes a more pessimistic view of what the future may be.

Enclosure by 6a Amalia Pica (Jason Sayer/AN)

Ten teams, of mostly architects and artists, have been assembled by curator Lydia Yee. From the start, audiences are confronted by metal sheep pens courtesy of British studio 6a and Argentinian artist Amalia Pica. This is clearly farm equipment and having to move through the narrow contraption in single file as a human is hardly fun, but dark humor punctuates the work; objects like buoys for seals to play with raise questions about how we treat animals. Maybe too, this is how it feels for some in migrant detention camps.

An engaging and provoking start is followed by less moving exhibits on the gallery’s ground floor. Adjaye Associates and Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s Sankofa Pavilion is meant to be a place for intimate conversations, but the star-shaped installation, which uses dichroic glass to partially reflect light, is more fun for taking pictures in.

APPARATA and Hardeep Pandhal, 2019, Thugz Mansion. Visitors are invited to sit on a concrete ledge and listen to Pandhal’s song about a failing society in front of a cut-out of a nuclear family. There is some Barbara Hepworth-esque tension between the concrete and a polished metal cylinder on which one ledge rests, but that’s it. (Jason Sayer/AN)

Thugz Mansion by London firm APPARATA with Glaswegian artist Hardeep Pandha also falls short. The premise of addressing “what happens to architecture when political systems collapse or become outmoded?” sounds deliciously anarchic but the reality is is that Thugz Mansion lacks any real potency.

The Beijing-based pairing of architects mono office and artist Cao Fei has produced a study into how those in rural China can gain access to technology. The result? A satellite-looking tower with wires sprawling from it plonked in a corner of the gallery. (Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery)

The final installation on the large, open ground floor is a welcome return to the dismal yet engaging promise of 6a and Pica’s work. Spirits Roaming the Earth from architect Andrés Jaque and artist Jacolby Satterwhite, both based New York, posits “highendcracy,” while bringing up air-rights dilemmas, designer babies, pollution, fracking, gay porn, queer space, and the placement of 432 Park Avenue renderings in Russian luxury hotels. It’s rich in content and remarkably coherent, even with so much packed in. If you can’t sit through the eight video episodes which explain how the world is fucked by the aforementioned subject matters, a leafy pulsating tower that rises above fumes and a jungle featuring rooms hosting sex parties and topped by two men kissing distills everything nicely.

Spirits Roaming the Earth from architect Andrés Jaque and artist Jacolby Satterwhite (Jason Sayer/AN)

Above, the second floor is a similarly mixed bag of installations. An interim space glosses over the 1956 exhibition with newsreel footage from the British Pathé archive and an assortment of relevant books. Beyond that, the Mexican match-up of artist Mariana Castillo Deball and Tatiana Bilbao results in what appears to be a melted Mecano set; it’s meant to symbolize communal connections and the Mesoamerican calendar.

Is This Tomorrow? has been promoted alongside a photo of Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Bangladesh by Marina Tabassum Architects. The firm, with fellow Bangladeshi, artist Rana Begum, has exhibited Phoenix Will Rise—simply an oculus with a crinkled, colored lining, in an inverted trapezoid structure. A weak reference to what is a wonderful building.

Thankfully, two much stronger works follow. Duck down and enter The Salvator Mundi Experience from British duo David Kohn Architects and artist Simon Fujiwara. The work accommodates only one person at a time and offers a 360-degree panorama of 1:24 scale scenes depicting experiences of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi—the painting that broke records when fetching $450 million in New York two years ago. Kohn and Fujiwara’s work investigates the commodification and marketability of art and art experiences, focusing on the public relations campaign from marketing agency Droga5, and depicts an auction room, the Dubai Louvre where da Vinci’s piece was set to be exhibited, a creepy “interactive chapel,” fake replica artwork donation center, a restoration room, and more. All scenes feature CCTV cameras, but of course, the viewer is the real Big Brother.

Entrance to The Salvator Mundi Experience from David Kohn Architects and artist Simon Fujiwara (Jason Sayer/AN)

After these miniature metaphors, Borders/Inclusivity from Iranian-born architect Farshid Moussavi and French artist Zineb Sedira ensnares audiences at human scale (the installation isn’t for those with claustrophobia). Borders/Inclusivity is a procession of turnstiles that turn different ways and force visitors to awkwardly negotiate the course. Meanwhile, motion sensors set off sirens and sounds of border patrol over the radio. The installation is simple but fits nicely with 6a and Pica’s treatment of humans as animals and it’d be a fitting end to the exhibition. However, Brits Rachel Armstrong and Cécile Evans signal the end of Is This Tomorrow? with a piece that somehow dovetails microbial cells and a fog curtain with a fluttering bird projection, all within 140 square feet—London’s smallest living space.

And that’s it. Maybe the Whitechapel Gallery is showing its age—once young and full of hope, now it’s moaning about how bad everything is and how much worse it will get, and not doing it too eloquently either. The original, the emphatic, This Is Tomorrow endures more than half-a-century on; the pessimistic, Is This Tomorrow? might not last so long. Despite offering genuine moments of intrigue and asking tough questions, one leaves wishing it was 1956 again.

Adelaide Kane Takes New Film 'Acquainted' to Mammoth Film Festival 2019

Adelaide Kane gets in the middle of a photo with her Acquainted costars at the 2019 Mammoth Film Festival on Saturday (February 9) in Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

The Aussie actress reunited with her former Reign co-star Jonathan Keltz, plus Giacomo Gianniotti, Mouna Traore, and director Natty Zavitz for the screening event.

Adelaide, Jonathan and Giacomo also served as executive producers of the film.

Acquainted summary: After old acquaintances run into each other at a bar, they each begin seeing each other and question their own respective long-term relationships.

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