criminals gone wild dvd

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/12/11/2007-12-11_ny_man_films_criminals_gone_wild.html

N.Y. man films 'Criminals Gone Wild'

By ALISON GENDAR and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, December 11th 2007, 4:00 AM


Shocking 'Criminals Gone Wild' video features footage of violent crimes as they take place and interviews with criminals who perpetrate them.

A Brooklyn man, Ousala (FD) Aleem, is getting rich off the profits.
Meet the most depraved director in New York.

Ousala (FD) Aleem has found a way to capitalize on violent city crime by filming felonies as they happen, slapping them on a DVD - and selling them for $26.98 apiece, shipping included.

The 25-year-old filmmaker from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said he's sold several thousand copies of "Criminals Gone Wild," and with Christmas coming there's even more demand for his movie mayhem.

"You try to make a product for the family, something that everybody can see, and nobody wants to buy it," said Aleem, a self-taught filmmaker who used to host a local TV show called "FDTV."

"The minute you come out with crime footage everybody wants to buy it. My pockets are fat now."

Aleem said he has no problem finding thugs to film - the word is out. They call him. "It's sad, but these people really don't care, they just want to be on TV," said Aleem. "I get phone calls from people who say, 'Come over to my part of town if you want to see some real crime.'"

The NYPD is reviewing the DVD trailer posted on YouTube to see if Aleem's footage is as real as he claims it is - and if there's enough to warrant an investigation of the filmmaker.

Real or not, what Aleem put on the trailer is as raw as it comes. It opens with a driver being carjacked by a gunman, shows a man unloading his gun on a man lying prone on the ground, and features a closeup of yet another thug stating in a matter-of-fact way, "Yeah, I killed somebody, man."

Another self-declared criminal with a blue bandanna covering the lower half of his face boasts that he has never done time, adding, "Which actually means I'm good at what I do." Later, that same bandanna-wearing man is filmed on the street closing in on a victim and can be heard saying, "We're about to rob this n---a live [on] TV."

That piece of footage in particular outraged the Flatbush, Brooklyn, man who alerted the Daily News about Aleem's shocking DVD. The man, who asked not to be named, claims he was the victim the bandanna-wearing bandit robbed last summer - and is convinced Aleem filmed the stickup on Church Ave.

"I know that was the guy who robbed me," the victim said. "He showed the gun and he said, 'Don't say nothing. Don't say nothing. Just hand it over.' Across the street I seen the guy with the camera."

The Flatbush man said that after the gunman made off with his money, he chased after the cameraman. "Then he starts walking fast and I said, 'Excuse me.'"

"Then I thought about it and stopped because I live around here and I didn't want it to get back to me," said the man, who said he reported the robbery to cops. "I've been robbed twice before and the police didn't do anything. I just don't understand how people can do something like that, tape it and say, 'Let's put it on YouTube.'"

Last week, another YouTube video of a gang of foulmouthed teenage girls pounding on a male subway rider outraged the city.

agendar@nydailynews.com

Here's the trailer advertising that Criminals Gone Wild DVD. (http://www.ifilm.com/video/2903862)

At first I thought that this thread would be only marginally relevant to The High Road but I changed my mind after I watched the trailer to its end. It's worth watching.

Here is the real face of violent crime: not two dimensional paper targets, not the movies, and not the fairy tales that people like Michael Bloomberg, Carolyn McCarthy, and Sarah Brady tell people to help them fall asleep. The people shown on this DVD will kill. And they do.

If you look, I suggest you pay special attention to the young man at 2:11-2:18 who says "I don't care who you is. You ain't bulletproof unless you got a bunch of police around you 24/7."

All videos on this were taken in New York City (actually in the borough of Brooklyn), which has had some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States since 1912.

So this DVD is tribute to the effectiveness of gun control. In New York City, as in Washington, DC, very few law abiding honest citizens have handguns. But the criminals do. That's how you can tell the good guys from the bad guys in New York City: the bad guys have the guns while the good guys merely die.

This is disgusting. It's a shame people will go to such lengths to make a dollar.

True, Rob87, but I think that this DVD could serve useful purposes in showing people the reality of what's out there.

Perhaps even more disheartening than what these people are doing, is the fact that they're willing to do it on camera with their faces in full view, because they know no one will do a damn thing about it.

On a brighter note, those "hard gangsters" wouldn't make it a week in my county.

I am willing to bet a lot/most/all of this is staged.

So, anyone else notice at 1:10, the guy pulls out an airsoft gun? Hammer already cocked, takes out mag, slaps back in, insufficient force to rack the slide of a REAL gun with no ejected round? And it sounds like plastic.

Great, more crap on the market to inspire young thugs to become hardcore violent criminals.:barf:

I wish there were reality videos called 'criminals getting shot' or 'prison gang rape gone wild' to put a completely different set of ideas in some of those pea sized brains.

No offense, but I'd rather not see inmates forcibly raping one another.

To each their own.

After watching it twice and visiting the myspace page, I feel like a lot, if not all, of it is indeed fake.

On the myspace page they had a clip of some white guy robbing a car and he was like the worst actor ever. It was like he was reading terrible script.

And like was mentioned, one guy has what appears to be a Beretta that is hammer back, removes the magazine, then puts it back in and racks the slide. No ammo ejection.

Also, all of the sounds of the guns sounded terrible. Also the shooting they showed had not blood or wounds visible and it was supposed to be a murder? RIIIIIGHT. People who videotape murders (and then try to sell it) get caught. Period.

Either way, its fairly disgusting to glamorize this behavior.

"You try to make a product for the family, something that everybody can see, and nobody wants to buy it," said Aleem, a self-taught filmmaker who used to host a local TV show called "FDTV."

"The minute you come out with crime footage everybody wants to buy it. My pockets are fat now."

This says it all . Pretty much how the "real" news organizations think to . Also says a lot about the public . Hey , if it bleeds , it leads . Sad .

FOX5 continued to investigate the story today, the cops are still wanting to question everyone involved. The FOX reporter talked to a guy that was in the video, a shady looking dude with an old knife wound in his face, he claims he's just a student that performed in the vid. I noticed in the footage thay aired, one guy had a Desert Eagle, but it didn't look too real and had wood grips, like many DE replicas do.

I am willing to bet a lot/most/all of this is staged

Yep. Looks fake to me.

i always thought that being present during the commission of a crime and not reporting it/participating in it made you an accomplice... this "reporter" actually films a carjacking, then gets into the car with the carjacker... lets hope that his last film is of a CCW holder exercising his right to self defense

According to this WNBC TV report (http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=194329), New York City doesn't have a good samaritan law. Brief interview with the filmmaker.

I just watched the whole video, it seemed staged to me.

Like my mom always told me"If you can't say anything non racist, don't say anything at all". Chuck.

I wonder if any of these reporters actually watched the DVD. It's so obviously staged it's painful. Then again, a staged crime isn't news (aka entertainment) so they wouldn't mention that fact.