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Criminals.Gone.Wild
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Criminals Gone Wild Suckered Us
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.
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.'" |
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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. |
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